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AMERICAN 
LANDS  AND  LETTERS 


SLeatber^Stocfeing 

Uo 

Ipoe's  "1Ra\>en" 


BY 

DONALD   G.   MITCHELL 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

MDCCCXCIX 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


COPYRIGHT,  1899,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


TROW   DIRECTORY 

PRINTING  AND  BOOKBINDING  COMPANY 
NEW   YORK 


TO    THE    LITTLE    GROUP 

OF  GRANDCHILDREN 
BORN  AND  BRED    UPON   THE  SHORES   OF 

THAT  GREAT  LAKE 

WHERE   THEY  BUILD   CITIES  AND  BURN  THEM— 
AND  BUILD  EXHIBITION  PALACES 
(WHICH  OUTSHINE  ALL   EXHIBITS) 

I  DEDICA  TE 
THIS  SECOND    VOLUME   OF  AMERICAN  TALKS 

TRUSTING  IT  MA  Y  FIND 
A  KINDLY  READING  IN  THEIR  HUSTLING  WESTERN  WORLD 

AND  SPUR   THEM  TO  KEEP  ALIVE    THAT  TRAIL 
OF  HOME  JOURNEYINGS  INTO  THESE  EASTERN  QUIETUDES 

UNDER    THE   TREES 
WHICH   WE  GRAYHEADS  LOVE 

D    G.  M. 
EDGEWOOD,  June,  i8qg 


PREFACE. 


riTlHIS  record  begins  with  times  when  the 
-*-  wrathy  independence  of  General  Jackson 
made  itself  heard  in  Congressional  corridors  and 
when  young  ears  were  listening  eagerly  for  new 
foot-falls  of  the  brave  "Leather-Stocking"  in 
the  paths  of  American  woods  ;  and  it  closes  with 
the  lugubrious  and  memorable  notes  of  the  Raven 
of  Foe. 

I  had  hoped  to  extend  the  record  to  embrace 
many  another  honored  American  name  —  whose 
birth-date  belongs  to  the  second  decade  of  the 
present  century.  But  the  "tale"  of  four  hun 
dred  pages  of  text  which  confronts  me  is  a  warn- 


viii  PREFACE. 

ing  to  stay  the  pen.  A  great  welter  of  pro  vision 
ary  notes,  upon  the  table  beside  me,  carries  dates, 
memoranda,  hints,  and  many  an  explosive  jet  of 
comment  respecting  the  bouncing  brilliancies  of 
the  Beecher  family  —  the  staid,  orderly  journey 
man  work  of  such  as  the  Duyckincks  or  of  Tuck- 
erman ;  odd  whiles,  too,  there  flashes  through 
this  welter  of  notes,  touches  of  the  lambent  hu 
mor  of  Saxe,  or  of  Frederic  Cozzens ;  we  hear 
the  click  of  Henry  Herbert's  reel,  interchang 
ing  with  the  click  of  his  Oxford  classicism,  and 
that  further  click  of  the  pistol,  which  (by  his 
own  hand)  wrought  his  death. 

We  have  glimpses  of  that  handsome  New  Eng- 
lander  Motley,  who  —  tiring  of  effort  to  kindle 
romance  on  " Merry-Mount"  —  went  over  seas 
to  light  up  great  Dutch  levels  with  historic  fires 
—  lurid  at  times  —  but  always  high,  and  shining 
and  fine.  Then  lifts  into  view  that  notable  group 
of  writers  which,  toward  the  close  of  the  second 
decade  of  the  century,  came,  within  the  same 


PREFACE.  ix 

twelvemonth  (1819),  upon  the  stage  of  life. 
Among  these  were  Dr.  Parsons  —  hardly  yet  ac 
credited  his  due  laurels  of  song  ;  Whipple,  also  — 
turning  his  protuberant  eyes,  full  of  keen  discern 
ment,  upon  all  ranges  of  work,  and  reporting 
thereupon  in  language  that  flowed  like  a  river. 
J.  G.  Holland  was  another  who  put  New  Eng 
land  flavors  into  a  clever  "  Bitter-Sweet "  verse, 
and  into  his  "Poor  Richard"  prose,  the  exal 
tations  of  common-sense.  Melville  —  of  whom 
we  have  had  brief  speech  —  was  among  these 
"  Nineteeners,"  and  gave  a  lively  Munchausen 
relish  to  his  stories  of  the  Southern  Seas.  The 
"  good,  gray "  poet,  Whitman  was  a  boy  when 
these  were  boys,  and  never  saw  suffering  without 
himself  suffering ;  if  he  gather  coarse  weeds  into 
his  "  Leaves  of  Grass,"  we  forget  and  forgive  it 
when  he  doffs  his  cap,  in  reverent  and  courtly 
fashion  to  "My  Captain." 

Last   of   this   group    is   that   dominant    figure 
among    them   who   joined    to  poetic    graces   the 


x  PREFACE. 

large  tact  of  a  diplomat,  and  who  (as  the  ob 
servant  and  entertaining  Dr.  Hale  has  recently 
shown  to  us)  by  his  tender  and  gracious  humani 
ties  made  "  the  man  Lowell "  a  worthier  person 
age  than  even  Lowell  the  poet. 

That  budget  of  memoranda  within  which  I  see 
the  kindly  light  on  these  names  —  and  other  such 
—  come  and  go,  I  turn  over  and  put  away,  and 
handle  again  —  loath  to  part  wholly  with  them  — 
yearning  a  little  to  say  more  than  an  old  man 
should  be  permitted  to  say. 

Allons  done!  let  us  lay  our  dead  notes  to  cover, 
without  ever  a  whimper  ;  and  we  will  listen,  with 
the  rest,  to  the  new  and  younger  and  keener  talk 
ers  ;  these  may  bring  to  the  work  a  larger  famil 
iarity  with  the  subject,  or  fuller  knowledge  ;  but 
not  —  surely  —  a  more  earnest  love  for  things  and 
men  American,  or  a  sharper  resolve  to  tell  only 
the  truth. 

EDGE  WOOD,  June,  1899. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

IN  NEW  YORK  AND  PHILADELPHIA,      .           ...  2 

OTHER  CITIES,  INNS,  AND  LIBRARIES,         ...  17 

Two  GEORGIANS,    ........  23 

FROM  WEST  TO  EAST,         ......  28 

POET  BANCROFT,    ........  33 

ROUND  HILL  SCHOOL,          ......  36 

LIBRARIAN  COGSWELL,    .......  42 

BANCROFT  AS  POLITICIAN  AND  HISTORIAN,          .        .  46 
OFFICE-HOLDER  AND  DIPLOMAT,     .         ...         .51 

GEORGE  P.  MARSH,     .......  59 

HOME  AND  SECOND  EMBASSY, 67 


CHAPTER  II. 

HORACE  BUSHNELL,     .......  75 

A  VITAL  PREACHER,       .......  79 

THE  MAN  AND  THE  ARTIST, 87 

A  MAN  OF  OTHER  METTLE,  .  ...  95 


xii  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

JOURNALIST  AND  MAN  OF  THE  WORLD,      .         .         .       100 
LONDON,  OWEGO,  AND  IDLE  WILD,  .         .         .         .106 

THREE  NEW  YORKERS, 114 

SOUTHRONS  AND  DR.  WARE, 118 


CHAPTER  III. 

A  NEW  ENGLAND  SAGE,      .         .         ....       135 

EMERSON  AT  CONCORD, 141 

EARLY  EXPERIENCES  AND  UTTERANCES,  .  .  .  144 
GEORGE  RIPLEY  AND  BROOK  FARM,  ....  155 
OTHER  BROOK-FARMERS  AND  SYMPATHIZERS,  .  .  165 
Two  DOCTORS, 169 

FULLER-OSSOLI, 177 

ALCOTT  OF  THE  ORPHIC  SAYINGS,  ....  184 
CONCORD  AGAIN, 188 


CHAPTER  IV. 

HAWTHORNE, 202 

COLLEGE  MATES  AND  ASSOCIATIONS,  .         .         .211 

FROM  COLLEGE  TO  MANSE,    .         .         .         .         .         .215 

TlIE  SURVEYORSHIP  AND  LlFE  AT  LENOX,          .         .       226 
LIFE  IN  BERKSHIRE,       .......  232 

RELIGIOUS  QUALITIES  IN  HAWTHORNE,        .         .         .       237 
NEW  CHANGES,      ........  240 

HAWTHORNE'S  PERSONALITY, 243 

EUROPEAN  LIFE, 254 

HOME  AGAIN  AND  THE  END,       .....       260 


CONTENTS.  xiii 


CHAPTER  V. 

PAGE 

A  NATURALIST, 271 

REFORMER  AND  WRITER, 276 

THOREAU'S  LATER  REPUTATION,          ....  278 

A  POET'S  YOUTH, 282 

A  HARVARD  PROFESSOR,     ......  287 

LATER  WORK  AND  YEARS, 294 

ANOTHER   NEW   ENGLANDER,       .....  305 

A  HALF-KNOWN  AUTHOR, 322 


CHAPTER  VI. 

POET  AND  PROFESSOR, 332 

As  AUTOCRAT,     ........       342 

SOME  OTHER  DOCTORS,  .        .  .      .        .        .         .  354 

HORACE  GREELET, 359 

THE  CHAPPAQUA  FARM, 366 

BRED  IN  THE  PURPLE,         ......       373 

SOLDIER  AND  POET, 377 

PHILADELPHIA  TO  NEW  YORK,    .....       383 

FORDHAM   AND    CLOSING    SCENES, 389 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRA  TIONS. 


NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE         .  .  Frontispiece 

From  a  photograph  taken  by  Mayal,  in  London,  in  1860. 

PAGE 

CITY    HALL    AND     PARK,    NEW    YORK,    ABOUT 

1830 1 

THE   CAPITOL   AT   WASHINGTON   IN  1837  .         3 

From  an  engraving  by  Bentley,  after  a  drawing  by  Bartlett. 

PHILIP   HONE 5 

From  an  engraving  by  Rogers. 

LOOKING     UP    BROADWAY     FROM     ST.     PAULAS 

CHURCH   IN   1830 7 

From   a    Swedish  engraving    by   Akrell,   after  a    drawing    by 
Klinckowstrbm. 

DAVID   HOSACK 11 

From  an  engraving  by  Durand  of  the  portrait  by  Sully. 

THE   OLD    CAREY     BOOK-STORE    IN    PHILADEL 
PHIA  12 

Corner  of  Chestnut  and  Fourth  Streets. 

HENRY   C.    CAREY 13 

From  an  engraving  by  Sartain. 

GIRARD'S  BANK,  PHILADELPHIA,  IN  1831      .     15 

From  an  engraving  by  Sears,  after  a  drawing  by  Burton. 


xvi  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


FRANKLIN      INSTITUTE,      PHILADELPHIA,     IN 

1831  .......      21 

From  an  engraving  by  Sears,  after  a  drawing  by  Burton. 

RICHARD    HENRY    WILDE  .  .  .  .25 

From  an  engraving  by  Sartain  of  a  portrait  by  Johnson. 

AUGUSTUS   B.    LONGSTREET        .  .  .  .27 

From  an  engraving  by  Buttre. 

THE   CITY   OF   CHICAGO   IN   1831      .  .  .29 

From  an  English  lithograph. 

THE   OLD   ADAMS  HOME   AT   BRAINTREE, 

MASS  ........   31 

ROUND   HILL  SCHOOL   ABOUT   1829  .  .      37 

Front,  a  copy  of  an  old  lithograph  owned  by  Colonel  J.  R. 
Trumbull. 

DR.    COGSWELL  ......      43 

GEORGE   BANCROFT   IN   1854     .  .  .  .49 

From  the  crayon  portrait  by  Samuel  Lawrence  (considered  by 
Mr.  John  V.  Bancroft  the  best  portrait  extant  oj  his  father). 

MR.    BANCROFT    IN    HIS    LIBRARY   AT    WASH 

INGTON     .......     53 

From  a  photograph  taken  about  1884. 

GEORGE   BANCROFT  .....      57 

From  a  photograph  taken  at  Newport  in  1884. 

GEORGE  P.  MARSH  HOMESTEAD  AND  BIRTH 

PLACE  AT  WOODSTOCK,  VERMONT  .     .   61 

GEORGE  P.  MARSH  .     .     .     .     .     .63 

FRAGMENT  OF  A  LETTER  FROM  GEORGE  P. 

MARSH  .       71 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS.  xvii 

PAGE 

LAKE   WARAMAUG 76 

HORACE   BUSHNELL 81 

After  the  crayon  portrait  by  Rowse. 

BUSHNELL    PARK        ......      93 

ASCENT  TO   THE   CAPITOL,    WASHINGTON  .       98 

N.    P.    WILLIS     .......    101 

From  a  photograph  loaned  by  Mr.  Peter  Gilsey. 

GEORGE    P.    MORRIS 103 

From  an  engraving  by  Holly er,  after  a  drawing  by  Elliott. 

N.    P.    WILLIS   IN   HIS   LATER   YEARS          .  .    104 

Copyright  by  Rockwood. 

FRAGMENT   OF   A    LETTER    FROM    N.    P.    WILLIS   108 

"IDLEWILD,"   N.    P.    WILLISES    HOME    ON    THE 

HUDSON HI 

MONUMENT    TO     STEPHENS,    CHAUNCEY,    AND 

ASPINWALL   AT   COLON       ....    115 
From  a  photograph  loaned  by  Mr.  S.  Deming. 

THE    STEPHENS   TREE 116 

From  a  photograph  loaned  by  Mr.  S.  Deming. 

JOHN   R.    BARTLETT 118 

From  an  engraving  by  Buttre. 

C.   FENNO    HOFFMAN 119 

From  an  engraving  by  Dick,  after  the  portrait  by  Inman. 


xviii  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

WILLIAM    GILMORE   SIMMS          ....  121 
From  a  daguerreotype. 

THOMAS    SMITH   GRIMKE               ....  123 

J.    P.    KENNEDY 127 

From  an  engraving  by  Whelpley. 

TITLE-PAGE         OF         "  THE        KNICKERBOCKER 

MONTHLY   MAGAZINE  "      ....  129 

W.   WARE 131 

YALE   COLLEGE  IK   1820             ....  133 

EMERSON              .......  137 

From  a  portrait  by  Hawes. 

EMERSON  AT  HIS  DESK  .       „       .       .       .145 
EMERSON'S  HOUSE  AT  CONCORD     .        .        .146 

A  CORNER  OF  EMERSON'S  STUDY    .        .        .  147 

EMERSON  IN  1847 151 

GEORGE  RIPLEY      .       .       .               .       .  156 

THE  POOL  AT  BROOK  FARM    .        .        .        .  157 

IN  THE  WOODS  AT  BROOK  FARM    .        .        .  163 

JOHN  S.  DWIGHT 165 

WM.  HENRY  CHANNING          ....  166 

From  a  photograph  loaned  by  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson. 

BROOK   FARM   TO-DAY 167 

MRS.    LYDIA   MARIA   CHILD         ....  170 

THEODORE   PARKER                                                            .  173 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS.  xix 

PAGE 

MARGARET  FULLER 177 

MARGARET  FULLER  COTTAGE  .     .     .     .179 

BROOK  FARM,  FROM  THE  MARGARET  FULLER 

COTTAGE  ...  .  181 

A.    BRONSON   ALCOTT 185 

THE     ALCOTT     SCHOOL     OF      PHILOSOPHY      AT 

CONCORD   , 189 

EMERSON'S  GRAVE 197 

HAWTHORNE'S  BIRTHPLACE,  SALEM        .        .  202 

CAPTAIN   NATHANIEL   HATHORNE   .  .  .203 

From  a  miniature  in  the  possession  of  Julian  Hawthorne.  Esq. 

ON   THE   SHORES   OF   SEBAGO   LAKE  .  ..  207 

BOWDOIN   COLLEGE   IN   1822     ....   209 

From  a  print  made  from  a  painting  by  J.  C.  Brown,  in  the  col 
lection  of  the  Bowdoin  College  Library. 

JACOB   ABBOTT 212 

HORATIO   BRIDGE 214 

From  " Personal  Recollections  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,"  Harper 
&  Brothers,  1893. 

FAC-SIMILE    OF  THE    TITLE-PAGE    OF    HAW- 
THORNE'S  FIRST  BOOK    ....  216 

FRONTISPIECE    TO    THE    RARE    EDITION    OF 
1839,  OF  HAWTHORNE'S  "  GENTLE  BOY  "  219 

From  a  copy  in  the  collection  of  Peter  Gilsey,  Esq. 
THE   OLD   MANSE,    CONCORD       .  .  .  .221 

THE   CUSTOM-HOUSE,    SALEM      ....   227 


xx  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

REDUCED       FAC-SIMILE         OF       HAW-THORNE's 

STAMP   AS    SURVEYOR         ....    228 

JAMES   T.    FIELDS 231 

THE  BERKSHIRE  HILLS,  FROM  A  POINT  OF 
VIEW  NEAR  THE  SITE  OF  THE  RED 
HOUSE 233 

HERMAN   MELVILLE 235 

From  a  photograph  in  the  collection  of  Robert  Coster,  Esq. 

WAYSIDE  .......    241 

W.    D.   TICKNOR 244 

HAWTHORNE   AT   THE   AGE   OF   FORTY-EIGHT       245 

From  a  portrait  tainted  in  1852  by  C.  ff.  Thompson,  and  now  in 
the  possession  of  Mrs.  Rose  Hawthorne  Lathrop. 

FRANKLIN   PIERCE 248 

WILLARD'S  HOTEL  AS  IT  APPEARED  IN  THE 
'FIFTIES 250 

From  a  print  in  the  collection  of  James  F.  Hood,  Esq.,  of  Wash 
ington. 

W.    W.    STORY 256 

THE   TREVI   FOUNTAIN,    ROME  .  .  .    257 

HAWTHORNE   IN    1862 259 

From  a  photograph  taken  by  Brady,  in    Washington. 

NATHANIEL   HAWTHORNE  ....    261 

From   a  photograph  given  by  Hawthorne  to  the  author  in  the 
Spring  of  1862. 

CONCORD    RIVER,    FROM    NASHAWTUC    HILL          262 

FAC-SIMILE  OF  THE  FIRST   PAGE   OF   A    LETTER 

FROM    HAWTHORNE    .  .    264 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS.  xxi 

PAGE 

HAWTHORNE'S   GRAVE  AT   SLEEPY   HOLLOW, 
CONCORD 267 

HILDA'S  TOWER 270 

HENRY  D.  THOREAU 273 

From  a  crayon  drawing  by  Bowse. 
WALDEN    POND 274 

DESK,    BED,    AND     CHAIR    USED     IN    THE   HUT 

AT   WALDEN   POND 276 

Now  in  the  possession  of  the  Antiquarian  Society  oj  Concord. 

THOREAU'S     FLUTE,    SPYGLASS,    AND   COPY   OF 

WILSON'S   ORNITHOLOGY  .  .  .    279 

THOREAU'S   GRAVE 281 

HOUSE   IN    PORTLAND,  ME.,    IN    WHICH   LONG 
FELLOW   WAS   BORN  ....   283 

PROFESSOR,    LATER    PRESIDENT,      FELTON,     OF 

HARVARD 287 

THE    CRAIGIE    HOUSE,    LONGFELLOW'S    HOME, 

CAMBRIDGE 291 

MRS.    LONGFELLOW 293 

From  a  reproduction  of  Rowse's  crayon  portrait. 

LONGFELLOW   AT  THE   AGE   OF   FORTY-FOUR        295 

From  an  engraving  by  W.  H.  Mote,  made  in  London,  in  1851. 

FAG-SIMILE  OF   LONGFELLOW'S  HANDWRITING   297 

H.    W.    LONGFELLOW 298 

From  a  photograph  in  the  collection,  of  Mr.  Peter  Gilsey. 

LONGFELLOW   IN   HIS   LIBRARY 


xxii  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

H.    W.    LONGFELLOW 303 

WHITTIER'S  BIRTHPLACE,  EAST  HAVERHILL, 
MASS. 30(1 

WHITTIER'S  HOUSE  AT  DANVERS,  MASS.        .  308 

FAOSIMILE  OF  A  PORTION  OF  THE  FIRST 
PAGE  OF  THE  "  NEW  ENGLAND  WEEKLY 
REVIEW" 309 

From  the  collection  of  the  Connecticut  Historical  Society  of  Hart 
ford. 

CALEB   CUSHING 311 

From  a  photograph  taken  in  1870. 

WHITTIER'S  HOME  AT  AMESBURY,  MASS.        .  312 
WHITTIER  AT  THE  AGE  OF  THIRTY-ONE        .  313 

From  a  crayon  drawing  of  a  daguerreotype  taken  in  1838. 

FAC-SIMILE  OF  THE  FINAL  LINES  OF  "  MAUD 
MULLER" 316 

JOHN   G.    WHITTIER 319 

A   QUIET   DAY   ON   THE   MERRIMAC  .  .  .    321 

THE    KENNEBEC   JUST   BELOW   AUGUSTA  .    323 

SYLVESTER   JUDD 326 

Reproduced  from  an  old  print. 

REDUCED  FAC-SIMILE  OF  A  DRAWING  BY  DAR- 

LEY  IN  SYLVESTER  JUDD'S  "  MARGARET  "   328 

FAC-SIMILE    OF    DR.    HOLMES'S    HANDWRITING    333 


BRIDGE     IN     WHICH     DR.      HOLMES     WAS 
BORN  .    335 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS.  xxiii 

PAGE 

COMMENCEMENT       DAY       AT       HARVARD       IN 

HOLMES'S   TIME 337 

From  the  frontispiece  to  Josiah  Quincy^s  "History  of  Harvard 
University." 

THE   OLD  HARVARD  MEDICAL  SCHOOL,  BOSTON   341 

HOLMES  WHEN   A    YOUNG   MAN         .  .  .    344 

From  a  photograph  by  Hawes. 

LIBRARY    IN     DR.    HOLMES?S    BEACON     STREET 

HOUSE,    BOSTON 347 

DR.   HOLMES   IN   HIS    FAVORITE   SEAT   AT    HIS 

SUMMER   HOME   AT   BEVERLY      .  .  .351 

From  an  unpublished  photograph  taken  by  the  late   Arthur 
Dexter,  Esq.,  about  two  weeks  before  Dr.  Holmes's  death. 

THEODORE    D.    WOOLSEY 355 

From  a  photograph  taken  in  1876. 

NOAH   PORTER  .......    356 

From  a  photograph  taken  about  1872. 

JAMES   FREEMAN   CLARKE          ....    357 
From  a  photograph  taken  in  1883. 

HOUSE   AT   AMHERST,  N.  H.,  IN   WHICH   GREE- 

LEY   WAS   BORN 359 

HORACE   GREELEY     361 

From  a  daguerreotype  in  the  collection  of  Mr.  Peter  Gilsey. 

GREELEY  AT  HIS  DESK  IN  THE  "TRIBUNE" 

OFFICE 364 

THE   GREELEY   BARN    AT    CHAPPAQUA      .  .    367 

Now  occupied  as  a  residence  by  the  family  of  Mrs.  F.  M.  Clen- 
demn  (Gabi^iette  Greeley). 

GREELEY     IN     THE     WOODS     OF     CHAPPAQUA     371 
From  a  photograph  taken  in  1869,  at  the  instance  of  the  author, 
and  now  in  his  possession. 


xxiv  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


ELIZABETH  (ARNOLD)   POE,  MOTHER   OF   THE 
POET 375 

From  a  reproduction  of  a  miniature  in  the  possession  of  John 
H.  Ingram,  Esq. 

FAG-SIMILE     OF     THE     TITLE-PAGE     OF     POE*S 

FIRST   BOOK 378 

From  the  copy  in  the  possession  of  Thomas  F.  McKee,  Esq.,  of 
New  York. 

THE   ALLAN   HOUSE,    RICHMOND,    VA.         .  .    381 

EDGAR  ALLAN   POE 385 

From  a  reproduction  of  a  daguerreotype  formerly  in  the  pos 
session  of  "Stella"  (Mrs.  Estelle  S.  A.  Lewis),  noic  the  prop 
erty  of  John  IT.  Ingram,  Esq. 

THE   POE   COTTAGE    AT   FORDHAM      .  .  .    389 

HIGH    BRIDGE,    LOOKING    TOWARD    FORDHAM 

HEIGHTS 390 

FAC-SIMILE   OF  THE   MANUSCRIPT    OF   ONE   OF 

POE'S  STORIES 392 

From  the  collection  of  G.  M.  Williamson,  Esq.,  of  Grand-  View- 
on-Hudson. 

EDGAR   ALLAN    POE 397 

From  the  Poe  Memorial,  Richard  Hamilton  Park,  sculptor, 
presented  to  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  by  the  actors 
of  New  York. 


AMERICAN 
LANDS   AND   LETTERS 


AMERICAN   LANDS   & 
LETTERS. 


CHAPTER   I. 

OUR  new  story  of  American  Lands  and  Letters 
brings  us  upon  scenes  and  experiences  which 
belonged  to  the  opening  years  of  the  third  decade 
of  the  present  century.  Monroe's  "era  of  good 
feeling"  was  drawing  to  a  close.  Florida,  only 
recently  acquired  from  Spain  (1821),  gave  to  the 
United  States  control  of  all  the  Gulf  shores  from 
Key  West  to  the  Sabine  River.  The  city  of  Wash 
ington  had  fairly  recovered  from  the  ugly  British 


2          AMERICAN  LANDS   &   LETTERS. 

burning  of  the  Capitol  and  library  (1814) ;  and  the 
great,  dusty  spaces  of  its  avenues  and  Mall  were 
enlivened  by  the  political  groups  which  were  mass 
ing  around  such  crystallizing  centres  as  John 
Quincy  Adams,  or  General  Jackson,  or  De  Witt 
Clinton,  or  Calhoun.  The  wily  Martin  van  Buren 
and  his  Albany  Regency  were  beginning  to  be 
topics  of  talk  at  "  Gadsby's"  in  these  days  ;  and  so 
were  those  "infant  industries"  which  sought  and 
secured  tender  tariff-coddling  at  the  hands  of  such 
trained  nurses  as  Daniel  Webster  and  Henry  Clay, 
and  which  have  since  bravely  cast  their  swaddling 
clothes,  and  can  urge  their  own  claims  for  nourish 
ment  —  roundly  and  jinglingly. 

In  New  York  and  Philadelphia. 

After  the  burning  of  the  Capitol  and  its  books, 
the  Government  had  purchased,  at  a  price  which 
was  not  one-fourth  of  its  value,  the  library  of  ex- 
President  Jefferson ;  and  the  old  gentleman  (who 
thus  provided  the  nucleus  of  that  vast  agglomera 
tion  of  books  now  known  as  the  Congressional 
Library)  survived  many  years  thereafter,  and  in 
tottering  age  assisted  at  the  inauguration  (1825) 


p  I 


VIRGINIA    UNIVERSITY. 


From  an  engraving  by  Rogers. 


of  that  University  of  Virginia  — lying  in  a  beauti- 
ful  lap  of  the  Blue  Eidge  region  —  whose  founda 
tion  and  up-building  the  veteran  statesman  had 
year  by  year  inspected  and  approved. 

Jefferson  was  not   apt   in   finances,   and   there 


6  AMERICAN  LANDS  6-   LETTERS. 

were  fears  that  his  liberalities  and  lack  of  caution 
in  his  later  days  would  bring  him  to  poverty  ;  but 
brave  and  generous  ones  came  to  his  relief. 
Among  them  that  Philip  Hone,*  one-time  (1826) 
Mayor  of  New  York,  who  in  1822  purchased  a 
fine  house  (for  $25,000)  on  Broadway,  opposite 
that  end  of  the  city  park  where  the  great  Post- 
office  now  cumbers  the  ground ;  but  where  trees 
and  grass  grew  then,  with  a  tall  wooden  paling 
about  them,  over  which  the  Mayor  and  his  guests 
(of  whom  he  had  always  abundance)  saw  the  fresh 
splendor  of  the  marble  City  Hall. 

Dr.  Hosackf  too,  at  his  elegant  Chambers 
Street  home,  vied  in  that  day  with  the  last-named 
gentleman  in  the  entertainment  of  strangers  of 
distinction ;  and  his  famous  Saturday  evening 
parties  were  known  far  and  wide. 

Between  1820  and  1830,  before  yet  the  railway 

*  Philip  Hone,  b.  1781  ;  d.  1851.  His  Journal,  etc.,  edited 
by  Bayard  Tuckerman,  New  York,  1889,  2  vols.  8vo,  has 
in  it  very  much  of  lively  interest. 

f  David  Hosack,  b.  1769  ;  d.  1835.  In  addition  to  profes 
sional  works  of  repute  he  published  Memoirs  of  De  Witt 
Clinton  and  Hortus  Elginensis,  a  valued  account  of  his 
garden  plants. 


03  5 

§•  1 

c  2 

15  e 

O  R 

O  ? 

J  i 


JOHN  SANDERSON.  9 

was  a  great  helper  of  travel,  the  swiftest  mail- 
carrier  between  Philadelphia  and  New  York  would 
reckon  upon  some  twelve  hours  as  the  measure  of 
his  speed ;  and  it  was  counted  quite  a  wonderful 
event  when  Cooper,,  the  actor,  who  had  a  fine 
house  upon  the  banks  of  the  Schuylkill,  under 
took  to  play  on  alternate  nights  in  such  far-apart 
places  as  Philadelphia  and  New  York  ! 

The  savors  of  the  Portfolio,*  made  famous  by 
the  loyalist  Joseph  Dennie,  had  left  a  lingering 
fragrance  in  the  Quaker  City.  Eobert  Walsh,  Jr., 
a  trenchant  journalist,  long  known  afterward  as 
our  Consul  at  Paris,  was  at  work  there ;  so  was  the 
biographer  f  of  the  Signers  of  the  Declaration,  who 
gave  later  such  attractive  liveliness  to  his  "Ameri 
can  in  Paris/'  of  which  a  brother  wit  said,  with 
clever  mensuration — te  'twas  the  only  book  of 
travels  he  knew  which  was,  at  once,  too  broad, 
and  not  long  enough." 

*  Finally  given  up  in  1827.  In  its  later  years  it  had  many 
funny  examples  of  art,  on  steel  and  copper,  in  illustration  of 
Fenimore  Cooper,  and  others. 

f  John  Sanderson,  of  the  High  School,  Philadelphia,  b. 
1783 ;  d.  1844.  Biography  of  the  Signers  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  Philadelphia,  1820-27 ;  American  in  Paris,  1834. 


io         AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

He  had  a  taste  for  the  table  and  its  enticements, 
as  strong,  as  piquant,  and  as  searching  as  his  taste 
for  the  blandishments  of  pretty  women  and  engag 
ing  toilettes.  There  are  descriptions  of  Parisian 
dinners  in  his  American  in  Paris  which  fairly 
scintillate  with  provocatives  of  appetite  and  with 
constellations  of  cookery ;  all  the  more  tempting 
was  his  talk  of  Apiciaii  delicacies,  since  it  was 
broidered  and  savored  by  abounding  Latinity  and 
by  pungent  Roman  flavors  swirling  down  on 
classic  tides  from  the  days  of  Lucullus. 

The  "  Wistar  parties"  were  then  in  vogue  in 
Philadelphia,  keeping  alive  the  memory  of  a  dis 
tinguished  physician,  whose  name  has  even  now 
large  literary  significance,  besides  pretty  reminders 
in  the  clustered  tassels  of  the  blooming  Wistaria. 
As  early  as  1821,  old  Matthew  Carey  (of  Irish  birth 
and  book-making  repute)  had  retired  from  the 
headship  of  his  book-house  on  Chestnut  Street 
in  favor  of  his  son  Henry  C.  Carey,*  a  bright, 

*  Henry  C.  Carey,  b.  1793  ;  d.  1879.  Principles  of  Polit 
ical  Economy,  3  vols.,  1837-40.  On  International  Copy 
right,  1853 ;  Theory  to  Out-do  England  Without  Fighting 
Her,  1865. 


THE   CAREYS. 


ii 


From  an  engraving  by  Durand  of  the  portrait  by  Sully. 


V  _  ^ 

shrewd,  black-eyed,    and    dominant    man, 
who  wrote  afterward,  with  much  chic  and 
thorough    thinking,    on   economic    subjects,   and 
whose    house    became   famous   for    its   entertain- 


12          AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

ments  and  for  its  "offerings"  of  excellent  Rhine 
wine. 


CHESNUT  &  FOURTH  STBEETS  .  V 


The  Old  Carey  Book-store  in  Philadelphia. 

This  house  of  Carey,  under  some  one  of  its  Pro 
tean  names,*  reprinted  by  arrangement  with  Con 
stable  &  Co.,  the  Waverley  novels,  which  as  soon 
as  they  left  the  binders'  hands  in  Philadelphia, 
were  dispatched  by  a  specially  chartered  stage 
coach,  over  hill  and  dale,  for  the  supply  of  New 
York  buyers. 

Both  Cooper  and  Irving  also  were  among  the 
authors  who  were  "booked"  by  this  famous  Phil- 

*  The  proper  succession  of  firm-titles  was :  Matthew  Ca 
rey  ;  Matthew  Carey  &  Son ;  Carey,  Lea  &  Carey ;  Carey, 
Lea  &  Blanchard;  E.  L.  Carey  &  A.  Hart;  Carey  &  Hart; 
Lea  &  Blanchard  ;  A.  Hart;  Henry  C.  Lea,  etc. 

Vide  :  One  Hundred  Years  of  Publishing,  1785-1885 ;  Lea, 
Bros.  &  Co.  ;  also,  Smyth's  Philadelphia  Magazines,  etc. 


THE   CAREYS. 


From  an  engraving  by  Sartain. 


adelphia  house.  Nor  must  we  forget,  while  in  the 
Quaker  City,  that  zealous  and  capable  journalist, 
Joseph  R.  Chandler,  who  gave  to  the  United 
States  Gazette  its  great  repute;  nor  that  other 


14         AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

politician  and  financier,  the  handsome  Nicholas 
Biddle,  active  in  establishment  of  Girard  Col 
lege,  and  who  for  a  time  managed  the  Portfolio 
journal  with  the  same  quick  decision  which  he  put 
to  the  management  of  the  United  States  Bank. 

The  Recollections  of  Samuel  Breck,*  who  died 
over  ninety,  in  1862,  are  worth  noting.  He 
wrote  very  much  in  the  easy,  confidential  spirit 
of  Pepys,  and  of  our  friend  Judge  Sewall.  As 
early  as  1820  he  laments  the  lack  of  good  servants. 

"  Mrs.   B discharged  a  servant-girl  to-day  for  fibbing 

and  mischief-making ;  .  .  .  has  been  nearly  three  years 
in  my  family.  .  .  .  No  sooner  was  she  entitled  to  receive 
a  few  dollars  than  she  squandered  them  in  finery  .  .  . 
bedecking  herself  in  merino  shawls,  chip  bonnets,  etc.,  with 
out  laying  up  fifteen  dollars,  tho'  she  had  rec'd  from  one  dol 
lar  and  a  half  to  one  dollar  and  a  quarter  per  week !  "  (p.  298) . 

And  again,  he  philosophizes  in  this  delightful 
fashion  respecting  the  introduction  of  steam  upon 
boats  and  railways: 

u  Steam  in  many  respects  interferes  with  the  comfort  of 
travelling  —  destroys  every  salutary  distinction  in  society, 

*  Recollections,  etc.,  of  Samuel  Breck.  Porter  &  Coates, 
Philadelphia,  1877. 


ro  ;*, 

00  * 

5  ! 

.3  I 


SAMUEL  BRECK.  17 

and  overturns  by  its  whirl-a-gig  power  the  once  rational,  gen 
tlemanly,  and  safe  mode  of  getting  along  on  a  journey. 
.  .  Talk  of  ladies  on  board  a  steamboat  or  in  a  rail 
road  car !  There  are  none.  ...  To  restore  herself  to 
her  caste,  let  a  lady  move  in  select  company  at  five  miles  an 
hour,  and  take  her  meals  in  comfort  at  a  good  inn,  where  she 
may  dine  decently  "  (pp.  276-79). 

Oilier  Cities,  Inns  and  Libraries. 

Mr.  Breck,  the  old  Philadelphia  merchant,  says, 
in  his  diary  under  date  of  1829  : 

"There  run  between  Philadelphia  and  New  York,  44 
coaches  connected  with  steamboats  coming  and  going,  carry 
ing  a  daily  average  of  350  to  400  passengers  !  " 

"Yet,"  he  continues — "in  going  over  the  same 
route  in  August,  1789,  I  had  the  whole  stage  to 
myself."  And  our  old  friend  Philip  Hone,  of 
the  "  Diary,"  writes,  under  date  of  1828  : 

"  We  started  [from  Albany]  at  10  o'clock,  in  an  extra 
stage  for  Boston,  by  the  way  of  Lebanon,  Northampton,  etc. 
•We  gave  $70  for  the  coach  to  convey  the  party  of  seven  per 
sons  to  Boston.  [And  again,  at  Northampton.]  We  vis 
ited,  in  the  afternoon,  the  Round  Hill  School,  and  were 
politely  entertained  by  Mr.  Bancroft." 

I  shall  make  no  apology  for  these  marginalia,  or 


18         AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

what  may  seem  isolated  facts ;  they  are  not  given 
by  way  of  gossip  or  to  engage  flagging  attention, 
but  rather  as  so  many  bits  of  color  which  shall 
contribute  —  each  its  share — in  making  up  and 
revivifying  the  atmosphere  of  the  time,  and  in 
bringing  into  view,  without  the  reader's  cogni 
zance,  the  ebb  and  flow  of  every-day  life.  Under 
such  conditions  the  writers  we  have  named,  or 
shall  name,  were  ripening  for  their  work,  or  be 
ginning  it,  or  making  its  matured  utterance. 
How  it  may  be  with  others  I  cannot  say,  but 
with  me  the  buzz  of  travel,  the  roll  of  the  coach, 
the  swinging  of  the  inn  sign,  the  stars  that 
are  shining  in  this  or  that  theatre,  the  clanging 
knell  for  this  or  that  hero,  the  jolly  echo  of 
this  or  that  fete  day  breaking  on  the  ear,  do 
somehow  bring  back  the  time,  and  give  a  real  and 
unforgetable  setting  to  the  men  and  women  we 
talk  of. 

It  was  in  1836  that  Mayor  Hone  sold  that  grand 
house  of  his  opposite  City  Hall  Park,  thence 
forward  to  become  a  part  of  the  great  hostel 
ry  made  eminent  by  the  mastership  of  the  elder 
Cozzens ;  and  the  ex-mayor,  in  his  diary,  tells  us 


MARGINALIA.  19 

of  the  price  he  received  for  it  —  $60,000  — and 
says,  in  querulous  mood  : 

"What  shall  I  do  ?  Lots  of  good  size  within  two  miles 
of  the  City  Hall  are  selling  at  from  $8,000  to  $10,000 ;  and 
turkeys  at  $  1.50  each !  " 

Poor  man ;  he  ended  with  buying  a  lot  for 
a  new  house  "up  town/'  at  Broadway  and  Great 
Jones  Street. 

One  who  walked  in  lower  Broadway  in  those 
days  might  have  seen,  not  far  from  the  Park 
palings,  a  little  gold  eagle,  with  extended  wings, 
that  marked  the  entrance  upon  a  jewelry  establish 
ment  with  the  name  of  "Marquand"  athwart  its 
door — a  name  which  has  since  been  endeared  by 
association  with  beneficent  gifts. 

The  old  Society  Library,  representing  one  of  the 
very  first  associated  efforts  to  provide  books  for 
New  Yorkers,  was  considering  the  erection  of  a 
new  house  for  its  treasures  upon  the  "up-town" 
.corner  of  Leonard  Street  and  Broadway. 

In  Philadelphia  the  Franklin  Institute  (found 
ed  1821)  was  thriving,  while  the  Philosophical 
Society  and  Library  Company  were  of  much  older 
establishment;  so,  too,  was  that  venerable  "  Lo- 


20         AMERICAN  LANDS  &*    LETTERS. 

ganian  "  gift  of  books,  which  boasted  the  oldest 
material  shelter  ever  given  to  a  public  library  in 
America.  Nor  must  we  omit  mention  of  the 
severe  Doric  front  (highly  admired  in  its  day)  of 
the  ancient  Eedwood  Library  in  Newport,  calling 
up  recollections  of  the  Collinses,  and  of  Ezra 
Stiles,  and  the  Channings.  While  far  in  the 
South,  the  venerable  Charleston  Library  had  been 
founded  long  before  the  Revolution,  and — burned 
or  preyed  upon  through  years  of  war — had  held 
its  own  in  some  locality  near  to  the  site  where  it 
still  survives  in  goodly  age.  There,  in  the  first 
quarter  of  this  century,  many  leisure-loving  de 
scendants  of  the  Huguenots  found  their  way  to 
pore  over  the  musty  quartos,  or  perhaps  to  discuss 
the  growing  fortunes  of  that  bright,  up-country 
man,  John  C.  Calhoun,  or  of  that  other  clever 
Carolinian,  Robert  Y.  Hayne  (U.  S.  Senator  1826- 
32),  who  was  fast  ripening  his  faculties  —  legal  and 
forensic  —  for  those  famous  contests  that  were  to 
ensue  with  Daniel  Webster  and  others.  Meantime 
Colonel  William  Alston  (who  had  fought  in  Mar 
ion's  Legion  in  Revolutionary  days)  used  to  drive 
down  from  his  Waccamaw  plantation  with  his 


Franklin  Institute,  Philadelphia,  in  1831. 

From  an  engraving,  by  Sears,  after  a  lira-wing  by  Burto 


LIBRARIES.  23 

four-in-haiid  team,  through  forests  of  the  long- 
leaved  pines,  where  flocks  of  wild  turkeys  lurked 
— sometimes  straying  athwart  the  high-road — and 
dashed  with  a  tempest  of  outcries  from  young 
negroes  of  the  household  through  the  tall  gates 
of  the  old  Brewton  homestead. 

A  far-cry  it  may  be,  perhaps,  from  the  mention 
of  a  typical  old-style  planter — who,  if  his  rice  crop 
came  in  well,  ordered  luxurious  hangings  and 
Turkish  rugs,  from  London,  for  his  King  Street 
house  —  to  things  of  literary  moment  or  relation 
ship.  And  yet  this  fast-driving  colonel  and  planter 
was  the  father  of  that  Governor  Joseph  Alston 
(1812-14)  who  won  and  married  the  beautiful 
Theodosia  Burr  (only  child  of  Aaron  Burr  and 
great-granddaughter  of  Jonathan  Edwards),  who 
on  a  fateful  and  fair  morning  of  December,  1812, 
sailed  away  from  a  Georgetown  dock  and  was 
never  heard  of  more. 

Two  Georgians. 

Over  the  border  of  the  adjoining  State,  where, 
in  Colonial  days,  the  eloquent  Whitefield  had 
made  his  voice  heard  near  to  the  cane-brakes, 


24         AMERICAN  LANDS   &•   LETTERS. 

and  where  Macpherson,  of  Ossian  fame,  had 
pushed  his  bargains  with  the  kindly  and  noble 
Oglethorpe,  there  lived  an  Irishman,  Richard 
Henry  Wilde  —  (born  1789),  but  an  American  in 
heartiness  and  by  adoption  —  who  had  emigrated 
thither  at  the  age  of  eight  only,  and  whose  father, 
a  Dublin  man,  had  lost  his  fortune  in  the  time  of 
the  Irish  rebellion  and  had  come  hither  to  mend 
the  waste — not  altogether  with  success ;  but  his 
son  did  better.  He  was  Attorney-General  of  the 
State  in  1810,  and  in  Congress  from  1828  to 
1835.  Thereafter  he  went  to  Europe,  passing 
five  years  there,  largely  in  Italy,  giving  scholarly 
attention  to  Italian  literature,  which  he  greatly 
loved,  and  virtually  discovering  a  portrait  of 
Dante,  by  Giotto,  which  had  long  been  lying 
perdu  on  the  walls  of  the  Bargello  prison  in  Flor 
ence.  In  the  same  spirit,  he  pushed  investiga 
tions  about  another  lesser  Italian  poet,  and  the 
relations  of  the  latter  with  a  certain  Este  prin 
cess;  all  which  resulted  in  his  pleasant  book  on 
Tasso.* 

*  Conjectures,  etc.,  concerning    Torquato    Tasso-,  2   vols., 
12mo,  New  York,  1842. 


HENRY  WILDE. 


From  an  engraving  by  Sartain  of  a  contemporary  portrait. 


^ 


As  a  still  more  rattling  remembrance  of  this 
Georgia  Congressman  and  scholar,  I  venture  to 
cite  this  little  spangle  from  some  of  his  Moore- 


26         AMERICAN  LANDS  fr   LETTERS. 

like    verse,   which  in  its  day  had    great    popu 
larity  : 

u  My  life  is  like  the  summer  rose 
That  opens  to  the  morning  sky, 
But  ere  the  shades  of  evening  close 
Is  scattered  on  the  ground — to  die  ! 
Yet  on  the  rose's  humble  bed 
The  sweetest  dews  of  night  are  shed, 
As  if  she  wept,  the  waste  to  see  — 
But  none  shall  weep  a  tear  for  me  !  " 

In  1844,  this  Irish- American  poet  and  politician 
went  to  New  Orleans,  and  died  there  in  the  plen 
itude  of  his  powers,  just  as  he  was  beginning  to 
taste  the  rich  savors  of  that  city  of  the  Creoles, 
and  of  its  winter  carnivals  of  sunshine. 

Another  Georgia  name  should  be  noted  in  pass 
ing,  for  the  tinge  of  realism  his  sketches  gave  to 
Southern  literary  work.  I  allude  to  Judge  Long- 
street,*  who  while  holding  judicial  positions  pub 
lished  (in  journals  first)  a  rare  series  of  life-like 
and  witty  sketches  of  the  Georgia  characters  he 
had  encountered.  In  later  life  he  became  a  min- 

*  Augustus  Baldwin  Longstreet,  b.  1790  ;  d.  (in  Missis 
sippi)  1870.  Georgia  Scenes  and  Characters  (originally  in 
newspapers),  published  in  New  York,  1840. 


AUGUSTUS  B.   LONGSTREET. 


27 


From  an  engraving  by  Buttre. 


/ 

ister  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  and  was 
successively  President  of  the  University  of  Mis 
sissippi  and  of  South  Carolina  College.  His  book 
may  still  be  found  in  libraries  —  public  or  private 
—  which  have  not  yet  tabooed  the  realism  that 
makes  the  tavern  talk  refulgent  with  flashes  of 


28         AMERICAN  LANDS  6-  LETTERS. 

negro  humor  and  hazy  with  the  snioke  of  tap 
rooms. 

From  West  to  East. 

As  for  the  great  modern  city  of  Chicago,  in  that 
decade  where  we  stray  loosely  (sometimes  remem 
bering  the  'teens  of  the  century  and  sometimes 
overleaping  into  the  thirties)  it  was  little  known 
to  most  people*  —  especially  reading  people  —  save 
as  the  site  of  Fort  Dearborn,  and  of  a  small, 
scattery,  trading -post  which  nestled  under  the 
wing  of  its  protective  stockade  ;  while  the  flat- 
lands,  where  now  steel-tied  temples  (Masonic  and 
other)  scale  the  skies,  showed  only  marshes  oozy 
with  flux  and  reflux  of  river  and  lake,  where 
herons  stalked  and  loons  uttered  their  wailing 
cry.  In  those  days,  when  the  great  Chicago  could 
not  count  a  dozen  families  in  its  population  be 
yond  the  scant  garrison  of  Fort  Dearborn,  John 
Quincy  Adams  was  rallying  his  political  forces 
for  that  campaign  against  General  Jackson  which 

*  See  Long's  Expedition  to  the  Source  of  St.  Peter  s  River, 
etc.,  2  vols.,  Philadelphia,  1824.  Note,  especially,  p.  164, 
vol.  i. 


ADAMS  AND  HARVARD.  31 

landed  the  former  in  the  Presidential  chair 
(1825).  He  was  nearly  sixty  at  that  day,  and 
wore  the  polish  due  to  residence  in  at  least  four 
European  courts — if,  indeed,  any  court  polish  can 
be  predicated  of  that  Sage  of  Braintree  who  had 
never  foregone,  with  all  the  changes  in  his  life, 


The  Old  Adams  Home  at  Braintree,  Mass. 

those  simplicities  which  had  grown  in  him  at 
the  old  Adams  home,  with  its  high  well-sweep 
(still  religiously  cared  for  and  cherished)  and  un 
der  the  influences  of  that  good  dame  Abigail 
Adams,*  at  whose  knee  he  had  crouched,  upon 

*  Diary  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  12  vols.,   8vo.     Edited 
by  C.  F.  Adams. 


32         AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

Penn  Hill  — on  the  day  of  the  Battle  of  Bunker 
Hill  —  and  watched,  mother  and  son  together,  the 
ominous  cloud  of  smoke  which  rose  over  burning 
Charlestown. 

Kirkland  (John  Thornton)  was  at  the  head  of 
Harvard,  carrying  great  dignity  and  suavity  to  that 
office,  and  much  kindliness  toward  younger  work 
ers —  specially  that  indefatigable  Jared  Sparks, 
compiler  of  the  works  of  Washington  and  Frank 
lin,  and  who  later  (1849-53)  was  successor  to 
Everett  in  the  presidency  of  Harvard.  Everett 
was  then  professor  of  Greek,  keeping  alive  the 
eloquent  traditions  which  had  belonged  to  the 
brief  epoch  when  Qtiincy  Adams  held  the  chair 
of  rhetoric,  while  George  Ticknor  taught  French, 
Spanish,  and  belles-lettres  (1819-35).  Dr.  An 
drews  Norton  *  represented  the  milder  poetic 
graces  of  the  college,  editing  with  approval 
an  edition  of  Mrs.  Hemans's  poems  (1826),  and 
writing  devotional  verses  of  much  popularity ; 
yet  keeping  his  doctoral  pen  well-sharpened  for 

*  Andrews  Norton,  b  1786  ;  d.  1852.  A  Statement  of 
Reasoning  for  not  Believing  the  Doctrines  of  Trinitarians, 
etc  ,  published  1883. 


GEORGE  BANCROFT.  33 

vigorous — if  somewhat  acrid — theologic  thrusts  at 
such  come-outers  and  independent  teachers  as 
were  shortly  to  confront  his  dignity  in  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson  and  Theodore  Parker. 

Poet  Bancroft. 

Among  those  at  Harvard,  in  the  first  quarter  of 
this  century,  whom  the  quick  eye  and  ear  of  the 
scholarly  Everett  detected  as  youngsters  of  prom 
ise  was  a  certain  George  Bancroft,*  the  clever 
son  of  a  Worcester  Congregational  minister,  who 
had  studied  closely  and  showed  a  wakeful  ambition 
at  Exeter  Academy :  graduating  before  he  had 
completed  his  seventeenth  year,  he  was  not  slow 
to  accept  the  advices  and  moneys  of  those  Har 
vard  friends  who  counselled  further  study  abroad. 
For  two  or  three  years  thereafter  he  ranged 
through  Central  Europe,  equipping  himself  as  a 
linguist,  and  grappling,  almost  fiercely,  with  all 
opportunities  that  offered  for  either  scholastic  or 
social  advancement. 

*  George  Bancroft,  b.  1800;  d.  1891.  Harvard,  1817; 
Poems,  1823;  History  of  the  United  States  (1st  vol.),  1834; 
(2d  vol.),  1837.  Last  revised  edition  (6  vols.),  1884-85. 


34         AMERICAN  LANDS  &*   LETTERS. 

A  longish  stay  at  Gdttingen  put  him  upon  the 
friendliest  of  terms  with  Dr.  Heeren,  who  was 
among  the  first  to  advise  and  illustrate  the  intro 
duction  of  a  politico-economic  bone-work  into  the 
old,  flaccid,  and  vascular  masses  of  historic  record. 
At  Berlin,  the  young  American  had  his  taste  of 
the  Sunday  evenings  at  the  home  of  Schleier- 
macher ;  carrying  thence  for  a  time  —  perhaps  for 
all  time  —  a  more  pronounced  pantheistic  trail  to 
his  theologic  thought  than  could  have  thriven 
under  the  droppings  of  the  Worcester  pulpit 
where  his  father  expounded.  He  saw  the  Hum- 
boldts  too;  encountered  Goethe  at  his  own  home — 
awed  doubtless,  but  always  bumptiously  Ameri 
can  ;  at  Eome,  he  fore-gathered  with  Bunsen, 
sowing  the  seed  there  of  a  life-long  friendship  ; 
upon  an  American  war-vessel  at  Leghorn  he  is  in 
vited  to  meet  Byron,  and  devises  a  swiftly  follow 
ing  opportunity  to  call  upon  his  Lordship  at  the 
Lanfranchi  palace,  where,  by  happy  chance,  the 
Countess  Guiccioli  steals  in  graciously  upon 
their  interviews.  All  these,  and  other  such,  made 
uncommon  experiences  for  the  son  of  a  quiet  New 
England  parson.  'Tis  little  wonder  that  pulpit 


BANCROFT  AS  POET.  35 

engagements  —  to  which  he  gave  some  attention, 
on  his  return  in  1822  —  did  not  enthrall  him  ;  nor 
did  a  Greek  tutorship  at  Harvard,  for  which  he 
was  booked,  hold  him  in  durance  for  more  than 
a  year.  Poems  were  simmering  in  his  thought, 
which  found  outcome  (1823)  in  a  thin  volume 
dedicated  to  the  "President  of  Harvard  Univer 
sity,  the  author's  early  benefactor  and  friend  ;  "  * 
the  author's  own  wanderings  in  Europe  get  a  de 
corous  setting  forth  in  the  verse ;  nor  is  there  a 
lack  of  Childe  Harold  flavors  :  — 

"  Build  in  thy  soul  thy  Paradise; 
The  world  of  thought  is  all  thine  own." 


*  This  was  Dr.  Kirkland,  and  the  thin  booklet  came  from 
the  University  Press  of  Hilliard  &  Metcalf .  I  give  a  frag 
ment  from  its  opening  poem  of  u  Expectation :  "  — 

u  'Twas  in  the  season  when  the  sun 

More  darkly  tinges  spring's  fair  brow, 
And  laughing  fields  had  just  begun 

The  Summer's  golden  hues  to  show, 
Earth  still  with  flowers  was  richly  dight 

And  the  last  rose  in  gardens  glowed. 
In  Heaven's  blue  tent  the  sun  was  bright, 

And  western  winds  with  fragrance  flowed." 


36         AMERICAN  LANDS  &>  LETTERS. 

And  again  : 

u  Farewell  to  Rome ;  how  lovely  in  distress ; 
How  sweet  her  gloom ;  how  proud  her  wilderness  ! 
Farewell  to  all  that  won  my  youthful  heart, 
And  waked  fond  longings  after  fame.    We  part. 
The  weary  pilgrim  to  his  home  returns ; 
For  Freedom's  air,  for  Western  climes  he  burns ; 
Where  dwell  the  brave,  the  generous  and  the  free, 
O  !  there  is  Rome ;  no  other  Rome  for  me !  " 

Yet  Bancroft  was  not  long  enamoured  of  the 
muse,  and  the  little  volume  was  presently  with 
drawn  from  circulation.  A  copy  in  the  possession 
of  the  Lenox  Library  shows  numerous  interlinea 
tions  and  emendations  in  the  script  of  the  author 
—  as  if  he  had  once  intended  a  revised  imprint ; 
his  engrossment,  however,  in  those  years  with  his 
friend  Dr.  Cogswell — with  educational  schemes, 
culminating  in  the  establishment  of  the  Round  Hill 
School — gave  other  direction  to  his  industries  and 
ambitions. 

Round  Hill  School. 

Dr.  Cogswell  *  was  an  older  man  than  Bancroft, 
but  their  common  trails  of  European  travel  had 

*  Joseph  Green  Cogswell,  b.  1786;  d.  1871.  Life  of  Joseph 
G.  Cogswell,  as  sketched  in  his  Letters  :  privately  printed ; 
Cambridge,  1874 ;  edited  by  Anna  Ticknor. 


NORTHAMPTON.  39 

brought  them  into  lively  mental  contact ;  both 
had  pursued  studies  of  an  omnivorous  sort ;  the 
elder  was  familiar  with  the  English  school  of  Har 
row,  and  Bancroft  had  glowing  memories  of  a 
visit  at  Hof wyl ;  and  out  of  their  interfused  ex 
periences  grew  up  the  plan  for  a  boys'  school  upon 
the  banks  of  the  Connecticut  which  should  put 
the  academies  of  Exeter  and  of  Andover  into  the 
shade. 

The  site  chosen  was  a  charming  one ;  Round 
Hill,  with  its  century-old  pines  and  chestnuts  — 
many  of  their  giant  boles  still  braving  the  weath 
ers  —  dominated  the  pretty  river  town  of  North 
ampton,  where  arching  elms  shaded  the  sleepy 
highways  and  where  the  venerable  homesteads 
of  the  Dwights,  and  the  Lymans,  and  the  Strongs 
diffused  an  arorna  of  respectability.  From  the 
hill  on  which  stood  the  early  and  later  buildings 
of  this  school,  one  could  look  eastward  athwart 
and  over  the  embowered  town  to  the  heights  of 
Mount  Holyoke  ;  somewhat  more  to  the  left,  but 
still  eastward  and  northward  and  beyond  wide- 
reaching  river  meadows,  was  the  gleam  of  Amherst 
houses  and  Amherst  College ;  while  southward,  with 


40         AMERICAN  LANDS  <Sr*   LETTERS. 

the  great  ox-bow  bendings  in  the  Connecticut  in 
tervening,  rose  the  rugged  cliffs  of  Mount  Tom. 
The  school  territory  embraced  fifty  or  more  acres 
of  field,  forest,  and  gardens,  while  a  near  stream 
(the  Licking)  was  empounded  for  the  diversion 
of  pupils  in  swimming  or  boating.  A  boy  might 
have  his  garden  if  he  would,  or  his  carpenter- 
bench,  if  his  tastes  ran  in  that  direction.  There 
were  native  teachers,  specially  imported,  of 
Italian,  of  French,  of  German,  and  an  English 
master  of  deportment.  Even  the  carving  of  a 
fowl  and  other  arts  and  graces  of  the  table  were 
not  neglected ;  and  on  Sundays  the  boys  in  lus 
trous  toilettes  filed  away  in  military  ranks  to  the 
Unitarian  or  Episcopal  churches,  as  their  home- 
breeding  demanded.  On  festival  occasions  in 
summer  weather  they  piled  into  great  open 
coaches,  and  drawn  by  huge  Pennsylvania  horses, 
they  carried  their  noisy  cheer  up  and  down  the 
banks  of  the  Connecticut.* 

*  Dr.  Henry  W.  Bellows  (an  old  pupil)  tells  us  that  on  one 
of  these  drives  (1825)  he  caught  his  first  sight  of  a  steamboat 
—  the  Commodore  McDonough  —  at  Middletown.  Thomas 
Appleton,  too  (Old  and  New,  July,  1872),  gives  many  pleas 
ant  reminiscences. 


ROUND  HILL  SCHOOL.  41 

No  wonder  it  was  a  favorite  school,  and  that 
boys  far-away  sniffed  the  odor  of  its  steaming 
dinners,  where  fellow-lads  did  the  carving  ;  no 
wonder  that  they  caught  the  lively  rumors  of  those 
joyous  coaching  bouts,  and  of  those  great  near 
woods — chestnuts  among  them  —  where  red  and 
gray  squirrels  chattered  and  where  sometimes  on 
the  early  snows  even  the  wild  turkey  printed  its 
tracks.  From  South  Carolina  came  the  Haynes,  the 
Middletons,  and  the  Kutledges  ;  from  Maryland, 
the  Gilmores,  Harpers,  and  Merediths  ;  and  from 
New  York,  the  Edgars,  the  Newbolds,  the  De 
Witts,  and  Van  Rensselaers.  Sometimes  the  roll- 
call  reached  a  hundred  and  fifty  names.*  But 
the  pace  set  was  an  exhaustive  one  ;  expenses  were 
heavy ;  there  was  no  endowment ;  and  as  years 
went  by  there  grew  up  a  partial  lack  of  harmony 
between  the  two  administrators.  Mr.  Cogswell 

*  In  an  old  number  of  the  Christian  Spectator  (January, 
1828),  I  find  a  notice  of  the  "New  Haven  Gymnasium," 
projected  by  Sereno  E.  and  Henry  Dwight  (sons  of  Presi 
dent  Timothy  Dwight),  "intended  to  resemble  the  Round 
Hill  School,  at  Northampton,  the  proprietors  of  which,  for 
having  introduced  the  Gymnasium  into  this  country  .  .  . 
deserve  the  thanks  of  the  friends  of  literature." 


42         AMERICAN  LANDS  6-   LETTERS. 

had  from  the  first  represented  the  fatherly  and  the 
indulgent  side  of  the  management  ;  while  the 
younger  and  more  ambitious  Bancroft  stood  for 
the  discipline,  for  mastership,  and  for  ceremony. 
After  some  seven  or  eight  years  the  latter  withdrew 
from  the  enterprise,  worsted  in  purse  and  in  hopes. 
A  few  years  later  bankruptcy  befell  the  establish 
ment,  and  only  the  imposing  buildings  and  the  yet 
more  imposing  forest  trees  in  their  rear  kept  alive 
the  traditions  of  the  golden  noon-tides  and  of  the 
crowded  coaches  which  had  made  happy  the  boys 
of  Round  Hill. 

Librarian  Cogswell. 

But  the  career  of  the  amiable  and  serene  Dr. 
Cogswell  did  not  end  with  the  shadows  which  fell 
darkly  upon  the  Northampton  school.  He  was 
near  to  fifty,  it  is  true,  and  misfortunes  had  been 
many  ;  he  had  failed  in  his  law  purposes  (though 
he  had  studied  with  Fisher  Ames);  failed,  too,  in 
his  home  life,  by  the  quick,  sad  death  of  a  beloved 
wife — leaving  a  wound  never  wholly  healed;  his 
health  always  precarious ;  directing  a  school  of 
large  repute  at  Raleigh,  in  North  Carolina;  invited 


Dr.  Cogswell. 


DR.    COGSWELL.  45 

to  the  presidency  of  another  in  Louisiana ;  editing 
the  stately  and  (for  a  time)  the  lively  old  New 
York  Revieiu,  and  urged  by  Washington  Irving  to 
accompany  him  as  attache  to  the  American  Em 
bassy  in  Spain.  He  could  not  do  this,  however, 
without  interrupting  his  assiduous  nursing  of  the 
Astor  purposes  toward  the  founding  of  a  great  pub 
lic  library;  and  it  was  very  largely  through  his 
courteous  and  persistent  urgence  that  those  pur 
poses  took  effect. 

Thereafter,  he  burrowed  in  books;  first  in  Bond 
Street,  mousing  there  amongst  dusty  and  cumulat 
ing  piles  which  threatened  to  bury  him  with  their 
toppling  masses ;  later  in  Lafayette  Place,  the 
mania  of  books  growing  year  by  year  and  feeding 
his  serenities  as  the  piles  lifted.  He  loved  books — 
loved  their  title-pages,  their  dates,  their  colophons, 
their  variety — loved  them  with  an  eager  and  grasp 
ing  love.  A  good,  kindly  face  he  had,  as  our  picture 
will  show,  with  a  lurking  shrewdness  in  it  which 
made  itself  felt  sharply — only  in  bargaining  for 
a  book.  And  whatever  extended  and  happy  influ 
ences  may  grow  out  of  the  zeal  of  those  who  guard 
the  present  great  "United  Libraries,"  New  Yorkers 


46         AMERICAN  LANDS  6-   LETTERS. 

should  never  be  allowed  to  forget  that  the  soundest 
and  most  fruitful  labor  in  the  development  of  the 
Astor  Library  was  due  to  the  care  and  love  and 
sagacity  of  Dr.  Joseph  Cogswell. 

Bancroft  as  Politician  and  Historian. 

Nor  did  Bancroft  lose  his  staff  of  empire  when  the 
boys  stampeded  from  Kound  Hill.  He  early  showed 
a  hankering  after  politics,  and  was  trenchant  and 
demonstrative  in  his  democratic  proclivities. 

While  yet  planted  in  the  mastership  of  a  school, 
he  had  uttered  and  published  (1826)  a  somewhat 
rampant  oration  on  universal  suffrage.  But  he 
had  not  at  command  the  arts  of  popular  oratory; 
his  figure  was  not  imposing;  his  voice,  though 
strident  and  far-reaching,  was  without  winning- 
ness  in  its  tones  ;  and  he  loved  always  forceful  and 
scathing  periods  rather  than  beguiling  ones.  By 
1838  he  had,  however,  so  far  ingratiated  himself 
with  those  New  Englanders  who  marched  to  the 
music  of  General  Jackson  as  to  receive  the  ap 
pointment  (from  Martin  Van  Buren)  of  Collector 
for  the  Port  of  Boston  —  an  appointment  that  was 
historically  signalized  by  the  official  presence  of 


BANCROFTS  HISTORY.  47 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne  in  the  subordinate  position 
of  weigher  and  ganger.  Meantime  the  earlier 
volumes  of  his  history  (vol.  i.  in  1835,  vol.  ii.  in 
1837)  have  come  to  issue  and  to  loud,  approving 
acclaim.  Dr.  Heeren  voiced  his  plaudits  across 
seas  from  Gottingen,  and  Everett,  in  the  orderly 
pages  of  the  North  American,  signified  the  favor 
able  judgment  of  Harvard.  There  was,  indeed,  a 
disposition  in  critical  quarters  to  condemn  the 
bounce  of  his  impetuous  rhetoric.  But  this  fault, 
if  fault  it  were,  abode  with  him  from  the  begin 
ning  ;  he  loved  heroics  ;  by  natural  bias  he  drifted 
away  from  simplicities ;  sonorous  and  balanced 
periods,  especially  those  with  an  ooze  of  freedom 
in  them,  enchained  him. 

"  What  though  thought  is  invisible  and  even  when  effec 
tive,  seems  as  transient  as  the  wind  that  raised  the  cloud? 
It  is  yet  free  and  indestructible ;  can  as  little  be  bound  in 
chains  as  the  aspiring  flame,  and  when  once  generated  takes 
Eternity  for  its  Guardian!  "  (Page  112,  vol.  i.) 

And  again  he  says  of  the  victories  of  that  first 
Revolutionary  battle  of  Lexington  : 

u  Their  names  are  held  in  grateful  remembrance,  and  the 
expanding  millions  of  their  countrymen  renew  and  multiply 
their  praises  from  generation  to  generation." 


48          AMERICAN  LANDS  fr   LETTERS. 

He  loved  a  good  tail  to  his  chapters  —  something 
to  impress,  and  give  emphasis  ;  just  as  a  coachman, 
proud  of  his  conduct  of  a  spirited  team,  loves  to 
add  eclat  to  his  success  by  a  good  crack  of  his  whip. 
Nor  should  we  forget  that  'tis  the  warmth  of  his 
democratic  spirit  which  makes  him  boil  over  into 
his  most  exuberant  utterances ;  and  if  he  catch  a 
rhetorical  fall,  it  is  oftenest  from  an  over-eager  step 
in  his  march  to  the  music  of  American  freedom. 

Of  the  larger  and  generally  recognized  qualities 
of  Bancroft's  history,  of  the  wide  and  untiring 
research  involved,  of  its  painstaking,  conscien 
tious  balancing  of  authorities,  and  of  the  earnest, 
unshrinking  Americanism  which  warms  it  through 
and  through,  it  is  unnecessary  to  speak. 

Mr.  Bancroft  was  twice  married;  first  in  1827  — 
his  wife  surviving  only  a  few  years  —  and  again,  if 
I  do  not  mistake,  during  his  incumbency  of  the 
Federal  office  in  Boston.  Both  marriages,  as  one 
of  his  biographers*  says  with  a  pleasant  euphuism, 

*  No  proper  or  extended  biography  of  Bancroft  has  been 
published.  I  am  indebted  for  most  of  the  facts  cited  to 
Thomas  Appleton(0/d  and  New),  Sloane,  Austin,  Scott,  and 
Dr.  Allibone,  in  his  Encyclopaedia,  or  his  later  notes  in  the 
American  Encyclopasdia  of  Biography. 


GEORGE  BANCROFT. 


49 


George  Bancroft  in  1854. 

Front  the  crayon  portrait  by  Samuel  Lawrence  (considered  by  Mr.  John  C.  Ban 
croft  the  best  portrait  extant  of  his  father). 

contributed  to  his  "  happiness,  and  to  his  sources  of 
material  comfort."  Certain  it  is  that  the  losses  of 
Round  Hill  did  not  weigh  permanently  upon  him, 


50         AMERICAN  LANDS  &•   LETTERS. 

nor  did  he  ever  stand  largely  in  need  of  revenue 
from  professional  work  or  from  his  books. 

It  was  early  in  the  forties  that  he  left  Boston 
and  established  his  roof-tree  in  New  York.  For 
what  cause  a  Harvard  scholar  and  a  Massachusetts 
man  —  both  of  whose  wives  had  been  accomplished 
and  cultivated  New  England  ers,  and  who  was 
himself  still  deeply  enlisted  in  historic  labors- 
should  forego  the  literary  opportunities  of  Cam 
bridge  for  the  surge  and  clatter  of  the  Manhattan 
capital,  made  a  puzzle  for  a  good  many  inquisitive 
folk.  It  was  a  puzzle  that  it  would  be  impertinent 
in  us,  writing  so  far  after  date,  to  attempt  to 
solve.  Yet  it  may  be  whispered  sub-rosa  that 
the  Democratic  bounce  of  an  office-holder  under 
Van  Buren  would  hardly  serve  as  a  very  good 
flux  for  the  interfusion  of  social  elements  in 
times  when  Edward  Everett  and  John  Davis* 
were  Governors,  and  Beacon  Street  still  bris 
tling  with  its  Quincy  hauteurs  and  its  old  Federal 
affinities. 

*  In  1844  Bancroft  had  good  support  as  Democratic  nomi 
nee  for  Governor  of  Massachusetts,  but  was  defeated  by 
Governor  Morton. 


BANCROFT  AS  POLITICIAN.  51 

Howbeit,  Bancroft's  heart  warmed  toward  the 
borough  of  Manhattan ;  and  for  many  years  there 
after,  when  not  absent  on  official  business,  his 
home  there  was  a  centre  of  kindly  hospitality. 

Office-holder  and  Diplomat. 

In  the  year  1845,  when  the  Whig  interregnum 
of  Harrison  and  Tyler  had  given  place  to  Presi 
dent  Polk,  Bancroft  was  named  Secretary  of  the 
Navy.  It  is  doubtful  if  he  could  have  piloted  a 
wherry  across  the  Hudson,  but  he  was  known  as  a 
shrewd  man  of  affairs,  and  a  worker  ;  moreover, 
he  had  only  a  few  years  before  closed  his  history 
of  Colonization*  with  such  eloquent  generalities 
respecting  the  slave-trade  and  Africans  as  were 
not  distasteful  even  to  those  who  favored  the  an 
nexation  of  Texas ;  he  had  furthermore  won 
American  plaudits  by  his  picturesque  presentment 
of  the  kindly  Oglethorpe  guiding  pious  Moravians 
to  a  home  upon  the  savannahs  of  Georgia,  and  of 
New  Englanders  assisting  at  the  fall  of  Louisburg, 

*  Being  vol.  iii.  of  Bancroft's  History  of  the  United  States, 
published  in  1840. 


52         AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

and  finally  crowning  his  volume  with  that  first 
glimpse  (in  his  story  of  the  United  States)  of  the 
"  Widow's  Son,  the  Virginia  Stripling/'  who  was 
shortly  to  have  in  his  keeping  "the  rights  and 
destinies  of  countless  millions." 

Mr.  Bancroft  held  place  in  the  Pierce  Cabinet 
for  only  a  year,  but  signalized  his  administration 
by  his  advocacy  and  effective  establishment  of  the 
Naval  Academy  at  Annapolis  ;  and  again,  by  such 
specific  and  urgent  instructions  to  naval  command 
ers  on  the  Pacific  as  made  them  ready  to  pounce 
upon  Monterey  and  San  Francisco,  so  soon  as  war 
with  Mexico  was  declared.*  Having  given  such 
pronunciamento  to  his  Patriotism,  Bancroft  left 
the  Cabinet  to  replace  Mr.  Everett  (his  old  teacher 
at  Harvard)  as  Minister  to  Great  Britain. 

Thither  he  took  his  brusquerie,  his  alertness,  his 
shrewd  Americanism.  But  with  all  his  democrat 
ic  leanings  and  out-spokenness,  he  had  yet  a  cere 
monious  courtesy  with  which  he  loved  to  dignify 
his  intercourse  with  any  interlocutor  —  an  old,  in- 

*  Battle  of  Palo  Alto  was  fought  in  May,  1846,  and  July 
18th,  same  year,  officers  of  the  Portsmouth  raised  the 
Stars  and  Stripes  in  San  Francisco. 


BANCROFT  AS  DIPLOMAT.  55 

herited  Puritan  crust  of  stiffness  that  rarely  left 
him,  and  which  bestood  him  well  under  the  cere 
monials  of  his  mission,  whether  at  London  (1846- 
49)  or  later  (1867-74)  in  Berlin.  With  those  who 
knew  him  intimately,  this  stiffness  did  not  display 
itself,  nor  was  it  ever  offensive  ;  it  seemed  rather 
the  instinctive  and  unconscious  bristling  of  an  old 
Puritanic  virility  which  took  on  such  expression 
as  a  Covenanter  might  have  shown  —  not  so  much 
a  combativeness  as  a  readiness  for  combat,  if 
need  came  ;  just  as  a  placable  dog  of  good  breed 
ing  will  set  his  hirsute  signals  astir  along  all  his 
spine  at  sound  of  some  strange  step. 

Let  no  one  suppose  that  this  took  away  from  his 
courtesies,  in  which  he  was,  on  occasions,  capable 
of  outdoing  the  most  punctilious  of  the  Angli 
cans.  There  were  witnesses  of  his  manner  who 
said  he  had  a  native  proclivity  to  sonorous  com 
pliment,  to  courtly  genuflexions,  to  wary  yet 
unctuous  caressment  of  established  dignities, 
whether  of  State  or  Church ;  all  the  more  re 
markable  in  one  who  cherished  beneath  it  the 
rank  growth  of  an  assertive  and  bumptious  de 
mocracy. 


56         AMERICAN  LANDS  fr  LETTERS. 

His  diplomatic  duties  did  not  forbid  attention 
to  his  historic  studies,  and  the  accumulation  of  a 
great  mass  of  material,  which — engrossed  in  portly 
folios — now  enriches  the  Lenox  collection.  The 
first  volume  of  his  history  of  the  Revolution  *  ap 
peared  in  1850,  and  the  others  followed  at  uneven 
distances  of  time  until  the  final  volume  (x.)  ap 
peared  in  the  year  (1874)  on  which  date  termi 
nated  his  embassy  to  the  court  of  the  German 
Emperor,  William  I. 

During  all  these  twenty-five  years  (which  would 
have  made  a  great  gap  in  most  lives,  but  which 
counted  for  far  less  with  this  veteran,  who  took 
smilingly  the  seventies  and  eighties  that  lighted 
his  long  career)  he  toiled  at  his  history,  rode 
jauntily  in  Rotten  Row,  made  a  home  in  Wash 
ington,  and  another,  long  cherished  and  loved, 
upon  the  cliffs  at  Newport — where  he  had  a  lawn 
rivalling  English  lawns — and  set  his  roses  to  bloom 
in  fairer  colors  and  with  more  velvety  petals  than 
any  that  opened  under  the  fogs  of  Twickenham  or 
of  Richmond  Hill.  He  loved  a  beautiful  rose  as 

*  Vol.  v.  of  the  United  States  History,  whose  concluding 
volume,  x.,  did  not  appear  until  1874. 


George  Bancroft. 

From  a  photograph  taken  at  Newport  in  1884. 


GEORGE  P.  MARSH.  59 

he  loved  a  sure-footed  horse,  or  a  rotund  trail  to 
his  historic  periods. 

His  long  life  has  held  us  to  longer  comment 
than  is  our  wont;  and  even  now,  as  one  of  his 
high,  rhetorical  periods  slips  from  tongue  and 
memory,  we  seem  to  see  that  alert  figure  and 
good  horseman,  mounted  in  soldierly  way — trim, 
erect,  and  with  lifted  head,  snuffing  the  breezy 
air  of  a  November  morning,  upon  the  banks  of 
the  Potomac  or  by  Georgetown  Heights — on  his 
well-groomed  horse,  with  a  rose  at  the  lapel  of  his 
coat,  his  eyes  keen,  his  hair  frosted  with  eighty 
years — riding  primly  and  gallantly  away,  into 
that  Past  which  is  swallowing  us  all. 

George  P.  Marsh. 

The  man  we  have  to  speak  of  now  was  not  less 
learned  and  scholarly,  but  never  filled  so  large  a 
space  in  the  public  eye.  Physically,  he  represent 
ed  a  more  stalwart  bit  of  New  England  manhood 
than  Bancroft ;  his  birth  and  bringing  up  were 
in  the  town  of  Woodstock,  in  Vermont,  upon  a 
shelf  of  hills  lifting  from  those  rolling  lands 
which  skirt  the  wooded  range  of  a  local  Mount 


60         AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

Tom,  and  which  are  laved  round  and  about  by  the 
flow — gentle  in  summer  and  boisterous  in  flood- 
time — of  a  small  affluent  of  the  near  Connecticut 
River.  His  father  was  a  large  land-owner,  magis 
trate,  and  sturdy  Puritan.  The  Puritan  stur- 
diness  the  son  inherited,  with  many  yeoman-like 
qualities,  and  quite  unusual  bookish  aptitudes. 
As  a  boy  he  regaled  himself  with  stolen  readings 
of  an  early  Encyclopaedia  Britannica ;  nor  did  he 
at  any  age  or  under  any  circumstances  outgrow  an 
insatiate  greed  for  "knowing  things."  He  had 
never  t  any  patience  with  dabblers  or  with  those 
who  "  half -knew "  things.  This  touch  of  por 
traiture,  will,  I  am  sure,  be  recognized  by  anyone 
who  ever  encountered  the  stalwart  presence  and 
the  questioning  attitude  which  always  belonged  to 
George  P.  Marsh,*  who  represented  our  country, 
first  at  Constantinople,  and  afterward,  for  many 
years,  at  the  court  of  the  King  of  Italy. 

*  George  P.  Marsh,  b.  1801  ;  d.  (at  Vallombrosa,  Italy) 
1882.  Best  known  in  literary  ways  by  his  Lectures  on  the 
English  Language  (1861),  Origin  and  History  of  the  English 
Language  (1862),  Man  and  Nature  (1864),  and  by  various 
addresses.  Life  and  Letters  (edited  by  Mrs.  Marsh,  1888) 
has  unfortunately  never  been  completed. 


EARLY  YEARS  OF  MARSH. 


George  P.  Marsh. 

Hiram  Powers,  the  well-known  sculptor,  was  a 
school-fellow  of  his,  and  Eufus  Choate,  a  college- 
mate  at  Dartmouth ;  and  in  both  school  and 
college  years  his  art-love  and  his  lingual  instincts 
had  so  developed  that,  at  the  date  of  his  gradua- 


64         AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

lion  (1819),  he  was  master  of  four  or  five  languages 
—  reading  Homer  as  he  read  English  —  and  had 
already  furtively  undertaken  that  hunt  for  rare 
etchings  and  engravings  which  in  a  few  years 
thereafter  made  his  collection  *  one  of  the  most 
notable  and  valuable  in  America. 

But  this  mention  does  by  no  means  fix  the  limi 
tation  to  the  quests  and  studies  of  this  stalwart, 
inquisitive  Vermonter  :  before  he  had  reached  the 
age  of  thirty  he  had  reported  to  the  legislature,  by 
special  appointment,  on  the  best  methods  of  edu 
cating  the  deaf  and  dumb  ;  had  corresponded  with 
Professor  Eahn  (of  Copenhagen)  on  Scandinavian 
linguistics  ;  and  shortly  thereafter  establishing 
himself  as  an  attorney  in  Burlington,  on  the  beau 
tiful  shores  of  Lake  Champlain,  had  entered  into 
large  schemes  of  wool-growing  and  of  manufactur 
ing  ;  had  printed  an  Icelandic  grammar,  and  had 
addressed  the  students  of  Middlebury  College  in 
such  praise  of  the  Goths,  as  exceeded  as  much  as 
it  antedated  the  later  encomiums  of  the  Teuton 

*  A  remnant  of  this  collection  is  still  in  possession  of  the 
Smithsonian  Institution— many  of  its  etchings,  by  Diirer, 
Rembrandt,  and  others,  being  of  exceptional  value. 


GEORGE  P.  MARSH.  65 

by  Professor  Freeman.  "  It  was  the  spirit  of  the 
Goth,"  he  says,  "  that  guided  the  Mayflower,  and 
the  blood  of  the  Goth  that  flowed  at  Bunker 
Hill/'  Meantime  he  is  deeply  interested  in  music 
—  at  one  time  meditating  an  elaborate  work  upon 
that  subject  —  and  again  making  such  a  homely 
and  wise  address  upon  the  mechanic  arts  as 
prompts  the  mechanics  and  other  voters  of  his 
region  to  nominate  and  elect  him  to  Congress 
(1842-49).  It  was  a  cosey,  modest  home  he  held 
there  (Washington),  in  the  western  part  of  the 
city,  for  many  a  winter ;  and  thither  came  at  odd 
times  Robert  Winthrop,  Speaker,  to  talk  of  Texas 
and  Houston  ;  or  Rufus  Choate,  to  chat  of  old 
days  at  Dartmouth,  and  of  Eschines  and  the  mar 
vellous  music  of  Greek  vocables;  or  Lieutenant 
Maury,  to  expatiate  on  the  sweep  of  ocean  cur 
rents  ;  or  Healy,  to  tell  his  stories  of  contacts 
with  royalty  ;  or  Daniel  Seymour,  to  discourse  in 
honeyed,  swift-flowing  phrases  about  Hegel  and 
Kant  —  all  this  at  an  always  modest  table,  over 
which  the  New  England  graces  of  a  most  accom 
plished  mistress  presided ;  and  always  the  stout 
master  flanked  by  a  modest  Bocksbeutel,  express- 


66         AMERICAN  LANDS  fr   LETTERS. 

ing  his  old  Teuton  love  for  the  modest  juices  oi 
the  Stein-wein. 

From  this  Washington  home  he  was  called 
away,  not  unwillingly,  upon  the  election  of  Gen 
eral  Taylor  to  the  Presidency  (1849),  to  duties 
and  delights  of  another  sort  upon  the  banks  of  the 
Bosphorus.  Of  these  newer  but  always  brilliant 
scenes,  there  are  charming  descriptions  by  Mrs. 
Marsh ;  *  and  other  descriptions,  by  her  husband 
— of  Egypt  and  its  Nile  banks  and  wonders,  of 
Akhaban  and  its  picturesque  cliifs,  of  the  camel 
voyagings  athwart  the  Sinai  desert,  and  of  other 
outlying  regions,  subject  to  the  Oriental  monarch 
to  whom  the  American  Minister  was  accredited, 
and  in  respect  to  which  it  became  his  pleasant 
duty  to  report.  Special  diplomatic  offices  also 
gave  him  ambassadorial  privileges  on  a  visit  to 
Athens,  whence  he  journeyed  through  Roumania 
and  Styria,  with  the  opportunity  of  putting  his 
keen  eyes  and  his  inquisitorial  mind  upon  the 
wonders  of  the  cave  of  Adelsburg.  All  this  made 
rich  forage-ground  for  the  man  of  so  many  lan- 

*  Life  and  Letters  of  George  P.  Marsh,  vol.  i.,  pp.  152-3- 
4-6. 


GEORGE  P.    MARSH.  67 

guages,  and  so  sharp   and  thorough  in  his   quest 
for  the  proper  solution  of  the  riddles  of  nature. 

Home  and  Second  Embassy. 

We  may  be  sure  that  it  was  with  reluctance  that 
he  turned  his  back  upon  the  splendors  of  the 
Orient,  when  Russia  had  opened  the  Turkish  war 
by  her  first  cruel  guns  at  Sinope,  and  Pierce  had 
succeeded  to  Fillmore  in  the  Washington  arena. 

But  conditions  were  altered  in  America;  the 
ugly  thrust  and  parry  between  slavery  advocates 
and  those  who  abhorred  it,  had  become  more 
vengeful,  and  was  ripening  toward  that  stage 
which  culminated  in  the  Civil  War;  his  moneyed 
interests,  whether  in  lands,  wool-growing,  or  man 
ufacturing,  were  suffering  grievously;  there  was 
quick  need  for  somewhat  which  should  bring  rev 
enue.  Hence  came  those  lectures  for  Harvard  and 
Columbia  resulting  in  his  scholarly  books  upon 
early  English  literature  and  language ;  scholarly 
and  interesting,  but  lacking  the  careful  synthesis 
which  is  apt  to  be  lacking  in  works  written 
swiftly,  out  of  whatever  fulness  of  knowledge,  for 
a  special  and  pressing  occasion.  He  himself  was 


68         AMERICAN  LANDS  fr   LETTERS. 

never  quite  satisfied  with  these  "chips"  hewed 
away  from  the  tree  of  his  knowledge. 

In  Man  and  Nature,  there  was  enough  of  wise 
observation,  sound  reasoning,  and  cumulated 
knowledge  for  a  half-dozen  treatises  ;  but  there 
was  also  that  unstudied  assemblage  of  parts  which 
did  not  invite  the  lazy  companionship  and  easy 
perusal  of  the  average  book-reader.  In  1857  he 
was  made  Eailroad  Commissioner  for  the  State  of 
Vermont,  and  treated  its  duties  in  such  way — he 
says  —  as  to  bring  a  "hornet's  nest  about  his 
ears."*  All  this,  however,  did  never  fully  en 
gross  him  or  stay  his  omnivorous  tastes  and  al 
ways  widening  outlook. 

What  wonder  if  he  looked  longingly  across 
seas  to  the  ^Egean,  and  to  Umbrian  skies  and 
memories,  where  he  had  found  the  ripening  of  his 

*In  his  Earth  as  Modified  by  Human  Action,  an  ex 
tended  edition  of  Man  and  Nature,  he  makes  very  frank 
declaration  of  his  attitude  with  respect  to  corporations 
(p.  53,  note).  He  says:  "It  is  hard  to  'get  the  floor'  in 
the  world's  great  debating  society;  so  when  a  speaker  who 
has  anything  to  say  once  finds  access  to  the  public  ear,  he 
must  make  the  most  of  his  opportunity.  ...  I  shall 
harm  no  honest  man  by  endeavoring,  as  I  have  often  done 


GEORGE  P.   MARSH.  69 

book-loves  with  golden  harvests  of  art ;  and  where 
the  mellifluous  echoes  of  Southern  singers  had 
lent  their  penetrative  arias  to  the  thunderous  con 
cert  of  his  loved  Teuton  bards  ?  Though  not  a 
political  worker  in  the  ordinary  sense,  he  had 
wrought  in  his  way  for  Republican  success  in  the 
contest  of  1870 ;  and  scores  of  friends  of  both 
parties  joined  in  furthering  his  views  respecting 
new  diplomatic  service  (the  railroad  people  join 
ing — it  was  hinted — in  the  urgence,  through  fear 
of  another  railroad  "Report"),  and  within  a 
month  after  Lincoln's  inauguration  he  was  named 
Minister  to  the  court  of  Italy.  As  he  had  left  the 
Bosphorus  when  the  first  guns  of  the  Russo-Turk- 
ish  War  were  booming,  so,  now,  he  left  Amer 
ica  on  his  second  period  of  foreign  service  while 
the  echoes  of  the  bombardment  of  Fort  Sumter 

elsewhere,  to  excite  the  attention  of  thinking  and  conscien 
tious  men  to  the  dangers  which  threaten  the  great  moral  and 
even  political  interests  of  Christendom,  from  the  unscrupu- 
lousness  of  the  private  associations  that  now  control  the 
monetary  affairs,  and  regulate  the  transit  of  persons,  prop 
erty,  etc.,  etc.,"  and  other  such  matter  of  a  sort  that  would 
have  delighted  Henry  George  !  Commissioners  of  that  stamp 
are  hardly  permissible  now. 


70         AMERICAN  LANDS  &>   LETTERS. 

were  still  reverberating  along  our  coasts  and  across 
the  prairies  of  the  West.  In  Italy  he  found, 
thenceforward,  twenty-one  years  of  distinguished 
and  dignified  service;  following  the  court  in  its 
successive  migrations  from  Turin  to  Florence,  and 
from  Florence  to  Eome.  His  heart  and  all  his 
mind  were  in  the  service  ;  the  hills,  the  fir  for 
ests,  the  meadows  of  Clitumnus,  Soracte,  and  the 
Campagna  were  all  brotherly  to  him. 

"  I  have  such  a  passion,"  he  says  (in  a  letter  of  June, 
1865,  to  the  present  writer),  u  for  the  nature  of  Italy,  that 
I  do  not  see  how  I  can  ever  live  under  another  sky.  .  .  . 
Why  did  not  Providence  give  us  Alps  and  a  good  climate  ?  " 

True,  he  had  never  visited  Colorado,  or  the  re 
gion  of  the  Lookout  Mountain  :  But  withal,  there 
is  no  let-up  in  his  bold  and  aggressive  Ameri 
canism  : 

"  Our  recent  history,"  he  writes  in  language  (not  gauged 
for  the  public  eye)  that  should  make  us  pardon  De  Lome 
for  his  private  expression  of  likes  and  dislikes,  "is  striking 
a  terrible  blow  at  Europe ;  and  I  trust  I  may  live  to  see  the 
playing  at  foot-ball  with  coronets  and  mitres,  crowns  and 
tiaras,  which  the  triumph  of  Democracy  on  our  side  will  ere 
long  occasion  on  this." 


72          AMERICAN  LANDS   6-  LETTERS. 

Unfortunately  we  can  say  little  of  that  long 
period  of  diplomatic  service  ;  he  wrote  nothing 
that  has  been  published ;  yet  what  a  help  to  his 
tory  would  lie  in  the  diary  of  such  an  observer, 
noting  the  progress  in  the  crystallization  of  the 
popular  and  political  forces  of  the  Peninsula  into 
a  new  Italian  kingdom  ! 

We  know  that  his  appetite  for  the  beautiful, 
whether  in  art  or  nature,  never  abated  ;  we  know 
that  an  old  Cromwellian  Puritanism  in  him  always 
growled  (though  under  breath)  at  any  invasion 
upon  popular  rights ;  we  know  that  tiaras  and 
mitres  always  had  a  pasteboard  look  to  him ;  we 
know  that  courtesy  and  friendliness  and  bonhomie 
always  touched  him,  whether  in  kings  or  paupers  ; 
we  know  that  he  greatly  loved  to  inoculate  all 
open-minded,  cultivated  American  travellers  with 
his  own  abounding  love  for  Italian  art  and  Italian 
hopes ;  we  know  that  the  water-flashes  of  Tivoli 
or  Terni,  or  all  the  blues  by  Capri,  never  wiped 
from  his  memory  the  summer  murmurs  of  the 
Queechee  at  Woodstock,  or  the  play  of  the  steely 
surface  of  Champlain,  under  its  backing  of  Adi 
rondack  Mountains. 


GEORGE  P.    MARSH.  73 

He  died  in  1882  at  Vallombrosa.,  a  little  conven 
tual  hamlet  upon  a  fringe  of  wooded  hills — rich 
in  pines  and  firs — which  skirt  the  Apennines  east 
of  Florence  ;  it  is  a  place  beautiful  in  itself,  with 
its  shadows  of  valleys  and  flashes  of  the  foamy 
Vicano  ;  and  it  has  a  still  larger  warrant  for  em 
balmment  in  all  wide-ranging  imaginations  by  that 
mention  of  it  in  one  of  Milton's  golden  lines  : 

"Thick  as  autumnal  leaves  that  strow  the  brooks 
In  Vallombrosa." 


CHAPTER  II. 

OUR  story  of  a  diplomat  and  historian  who 
loved  discipline  and  ceremony  and  roses, 
reached  over  a  great  array  of  years,  and  it  seems 
only  yesterday  (1891)  that  his  prim,  school-master 
ly  figure  went  down  under  the  horizon  :  while  our 
good  friend,  the  scholarly  Marsh,  with  as  quick  an 
ear  for  musical  notes  as  for  the  rugged  rhythm 
of  a  Scandinavian  folk-song — had  made  a  goodly 
march  into  the  depths  of  the  present  century  be 
fore  he  joined  the  army  of  the  dead  at  Vallom- 
brosa. 

There  were  lesser  men  of  whom  we  spoke  ;  men 
known  for  the  virtues  which  distil  in  poems,  and 
for  other  virtues  which  make  other  markings  upon 
the  sands  of  time.  We  tried  to  frame  these  sev 
eral  and  briefer  notices  in  such  setting  of  his 
toric  or  of  social  data  as  should  give  their  subjects 

unforgetable  pose  and  place  in  our  little  gallery. 

74 


HORACE  BUSHNELL.  75 

To-day  our  eye  is  fastened  on  the  New  Eng 
land  pulpit,  and  on  the  presence  there  (at  the 
epoch  we  are  upon)  of  that  spiritual  man  of  rare 
gifts  who  wrote  Work  and  Play  and  Nature  and 
the  Supernatural. 

Horace  BusJinell. 

I  have  called  him*  a  man  of  rare  gifts,  not  yet, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  appreciated  at  their  true  worth 
by  those  who  are  our  conventional  measurers  of 
reputation. 

He  was  born  in  a  little  village  near  Bantam  Lake 
(in  a  house  long  since  gone),  not  far  away  from 
Litchfield-Hill  ;  but  from  this  home  the  family 
removed,  when  the  child  was  scarce  three  years 
old,  to  a  larger  farm  in  New  Preston,  upon  the 
borders  of  a  stream  that  flows  from  Lake  Wara- 
maug,  and  that  once  gave  a  busy  "  hum  "  to  the 

*  Horace  Buslmell,  b.  1802 ;  d.  1876  ;  was  graduated,  Yale 
College,  1827  ;  Christian  Nurture,  1847  ;  God  in  Christ, 
1849;  Sermons  for  the  New  Life,  1858;  Moral  Uses  of  Dark 
Things,  1868;  His  Life  and  Letters  [by  his  daughter]. 
Mary  K.  Cheney,  1880.  The  original  Allibone  Dictionary 
gives  both  date  and  place  of  birth  wrongly.  The  Supple 
ment  gives  true  birth-date,  but  wrong  place  of  birth. 


76         AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

wheels  of  his  father's  fulling-mill.  There,  came 
about  a  home-spun  rearing  of  the  lad — under  the 
influence  of  a  landscape  which  abounded  in  pictu- 


Lake  Waramaug. 

resque  beauties,  and  the  further  influences  of  a 
delicate,  indefatigable,  spiritually  minded  mother 
whose  "  gray-blue  eyes "  beamed  always  on  him 
tenderly,  whether  in  love  or  in  rebuke.  Memories 
of  that  home  and  of  those  surroundings  make  up 
very  much  of  the  warp  and  woof  of  his  admirable 
essay  upon  the  "Age  of  Home-spun."*  For  the 


*  Read  at  Centennial  Festival,  Litchfield,  1851. 


HORACE  BUSH  NELL.  77 

most  part  there  was  only  country  schooling,  with 
the  "  spring  "  given  to  it  by  a  watchful  and  am 
bitious  parent ;  while  wiser  economies  under  the 
same  keen  oversight  gave  a  launch  upon  college 
life  at  Yale. 

He  studied  there  as  such  eager,  inquiring  minds 
must,  but  not  always  in  the  exact  lines  laid  down 
by  the  directory  ;  not  indeed  always  giving  full 
allegiance,  but  sharing,  on  one  occasion  at  least,  in 
a  quasi-rebellion — believing  that  the  governors  by 
some  decision  of  theirs  had  wronged  him,  and 
others.  And  believing  thus,  it  belonged  to  his 
Puritan  blood  and  breeding  to  call  a  halt  and  to 
declare  for  Justice.  This  perturbation,  however, 
worked  itself  free  —  as  over-shaken  beer  relieves 
itself  by  frothy  output  —  and  honors  and  high 
consideration  were  won  in  those  college  years. 

After  this  came  a  bout  of  school-keeping,  in 
which  he  was  not  altogether  himself  ;  his  wakeful 
mind  taking  quick  cognizance  of  those  who  were 
earnest  and  had  germs  of  growth  in  their  brains ; 
and  correspondingly  neglectful,  nay  scornful,  per 
haps,  of  those  who  could  live  on  husks.  Kindly 
patience  with  dulness  or  stupidity  was,  I  think, 


78         AMERICAN  LANDS  &*   LETTERS. 

never  one  of  his  virtues  ;  his  pages  shine,  up  and 
down,  with  provocatives  to  thought ;  but  nowhere 
in  them  do  I  find  seductive  twaddle,  whereby 
sluggish  minds  can  batten  their  lazy  habit. 

That  monitress  of  the  "gray-blue"  eyes,  who 
had  hoped  to  feast  her  sight  upon  him  in  the 
pulpit,  may  have  had  her  doubts ;  for  he  was 
restive  in  religious  matters  in  those  years,  "  ex 
pecting,"  as  he  says  later,  "  so  intently,  to  dig 
out  a  religion  by  my  head  that  I  was  pushing  it 
all  the  while  practically  away" — (p.  32,  Life). 

Yet  it  results  as  the  trustful  and  praying 
mother  had  wished ;  and  at  the  age  of  thirty  or 
thereabout — he  being  lithe  and  strong  and  having 
taken  a  novitiate  of  tutorship  at  his  college  —  he 
begins  preachment  as  pastor  in  the  city  of  Hart 
ford  —  a  city  where  we  found  Trumbull  and  the 
others  ;  and  a  city  which  he  was  to  honor  and  to 
make  honored  not  only  by  pulpit  discourses  of 
high  Christian  and  crystalline  qualities,  but  by 
contributing  through  his  urgence  and  taste  to  the 
outpour  and  the  planting  of  rich  graces  of  land 
scape  upon  the  very  heart  of  the  town. 


HORACE  BUSH  NELL.  79 

A   Vital  Preacher. 

It  was  not  all  plain  sailing  in  that  day  in  Con 
necticut  pulpits  for  ambitious  young  clergymen 
who  were  battling  thoughtfully  with  theologic 
problems,  and  putting  out  their  own  tentacles  of 
feeling  into  the  realm  of  Faith. 

Beecherism  and  Taylorism  and  Tylerism — and 
I  know  not  what  besides — had  their  exponents, 
with  such  good,  honest  blunderbusses  of  Ortho 
doxy  as  Dr.  Hawes  to  fire  away,  scatteringly,  but 
with  heavy  slugs,  at  whatsoever  new  light  shone 
too  effusively  above  the  old  pulpit  cushions. 

Bushnell  himself  tells  somewhere  of  his  early 
experiences  before  yet  planted  in  his  new  parish, 
and  how  he  was  toled  away  from  the  house  of  one 
good  deacon  to  that  of  another,  from  fear  that  he 
might  be  impregnated  with  too  many  pungencies 
of  the  "New  School."  But  our  hero  of  the  Litch- 
field  hills  was  not  easily  impregnated  ;  he  had 
vital  ways  of  thinking  for  himself.  This  brought 
clamorous  experiences  to  him  and  heavy  pound 
ings  from  associations  and  consociations ;  un 
der  all  which  he  carries  himself  with  such  se- 


8o         AMERICAN  LANDS  fr   LETTERS. 

renities  that  even  the  arch-flagellants,  when 
brought  into  open  contact,  express  private  won 
derment  that  Beelzebub  should  ever  lurk  under 
such  spirituality  of  mien. 

He  loved  good  and  true  things,  whether  of 
doctrine  or  conduct,  wherever  he  met  them ;  not  a 
thorough-bred  theologian,  nor  without  strong  dis 
like  for  that  way  of  branding  a  man ;  struggling 
for  language  which  should  so  measure  his  faiths 
and  that  of  others  as  to  bind  all  together  ;  loving 
even  certain  Unitarian  preachers  in  a  way  that 

made  Drs.  T and  B ,  those  good  haters 

of  creeds  which  were  not  theirs,  shudder  ;  but 
throughout  his  neighborly  affiliation  with  the 
Boston  brethren,  objecting  (as  in  his  delightful 
letters  to  his  friend  Bartol)  that  he  must  keep  his 
"  Christ  as  man,  and  Christ  as  God  —  for  the  first 
quality  to  bring  him  near,  and  for  the  last,  to  give 
him  power/3  It  was  a  beautiful  intellectual  proj 
ect  of  his,  to  clothe  the  old  technicalities  and 
dogmas  and  orthodoxies  in  such  new  wedding-gar 
ments  of  shining  language  as  should  make  them 
matchable  with  a  faith  borri  of  later  and  larger 
thinkings.  How  he  scorned  cant ;  yet  how  he 


Horace  Bushnell. 

After  the  crayon  portrait  by  Roivse. 


BUSHNELUS  PREACHING.  83 

yearned  toward  the  truths  which  had  been  mis- 
clad  in  it  for  so  many  years  of  durance  ! 

His  old  college-folk  of  Yale,  though  proud, 
were,  I  think,  a  little  shy  of  him,  and  of  his  broad 
range  ;  '  tis  doubtful  if  he  could  have  subscribed 
to  every  averment  of  Day  on  the  Will,  or  to  all 
the  inclusions  of  Taylor's  Moral  Government.  I 
doubt  if  he  could  ever  have  won  installation  as 
religious  teacher  there  ;  yet  he  was  sometimes 
invited  to  illuminate  the  college  pulpit  of  a 
Sunday  ;  and  I  can  recall  vividly  his  coming, 
and  his  prayer,  and  his  talk  upon  some  such 
occasion  in  the  old  college  chapel.  A  spare 
man  —  as  I  remember  him  —  of  fair  height,  thin- 
faced,  with  no  shadow  of  grossness  in  him — almost 
the  hollow  cheeks  of  an  anchorite,  and  with  a 
voice  that  bore  one  into  celestial  altitudes. 

We  upon  the  oaken  benches  were  not  great 
lovers  of  sermons  in  those  days,  or  of  preachers ; 
but  here  was  a  man  whose  voice  and  manner  held 
us  ;  the  old  hymns  caught  a  fresh  meaning,  and 
were  lighted  with  a  new  refulgence.  The  pray 
ers,  too,  had  in  them  something  fresh,  piercing ; 
perhaps  his  own  parish  grew  used  to  their  vital,  if 


84          AMERICAN  LANDS  &>   LETTERS. 

deliberate,  earnestness  and  pleading  ;  perhaps  they 
took  on  from  his  own  desk  (after  weeks  on  weeks) 
that  dreary  conventionalism  which  spoils  so  much 
of  extemporaneous  praying  ;  but  to  one  hearing 
them  rarely,  this  seemed  quite  impossible.  His  pict 
uresque  language,  sharpened  by  subtle  meanings, 
was  like  an  ever-fresh  and  intense  wrestling  with 
the  spirits  of  Evil  for  a  standpoint  in  the  Divine 
Presence  —  a  logical  and  earnest  building-up  of  an 
always  new  and  always  easier  road  to  Heaven, 
whereby,  as  on  Jacob's  ladder  of  old,  angels  might, 
and  did,  come  and  go,  with  healing  in  their  wings. 
Then,  in  the  sermons,  there  was  pith  ;  he  stuck 
to  the  core  of  things.  He  was  outside  and  re 
mote  from  conventionalities  —  so  remote  that  you 
would  hardly  expect  him  to  say  a  "good-morn 
ing  "  as  other  men  did,  but  to  put  casual  greeting 
into  such  fashion  as  would  strike  deeper  and  last 
longer ;  a  seer,  looking  into  the  depths  that  hem 
us  in,  with  uttered  warnings,  advices,  expostu 
lations,  tender  encouragements,  all  wrapped  in 
words  that  tingled  with  new  meanings  or  beguiled 
one  with  their  resonant  euphuisms.  There  be 
preachers  who  tow  burdened  sinners  with  tug  and 


HORACE  BUSHNELL.  85 

strain  into  smoother,  calmer  water,  where  riding 
is  easy  and  skies  alluring ;  but  this  man,  some 
how,  without  makeshift  of  theologic  hawsers,  took 
one  under  spiritual  breezes,  on  great  billows  of 
reverential  thought,  into  the  harbor  of  divine 
serenities  where  a  supreme  presence  reigned. 

I  am  puzzled  in  the  search  for  some  excerpts 
which  may  show  the  tracks  of  this  man,  wheth 
er  as  disputant  or  sermonizer.  In  the  very  front 
of  his  defence  against  charges  of  heresy,  he  says  : 

u  It  were  pleasant  enough  t<r  be  accounted  orthodox  by 
my  brethren,  if  by  that  means  I  may  have  their  confidence ; 
but  I  think  God  will  assist  me,  for  the  few  years  that  remain, 
to  suffer  any  judgment  they  are  pleased  to  hold,  if  only  I 
can  find  and  maintain  the  truth.  [And,  again,  from  the  same 
Christ  in  Theology :]  "Nothing  can  be  more  clear,  at  this 
moment,  than  that  .  .  .  the  reign  of  dogma,  and  state 
power,  and  ceremony,  and  priestly  orders  —  everything  that 
has  held  the  organizing  power  [of  the  Church]  in  past  ages, 
is  now  breaking  down  into  impotence  and  passing  away. 
And  what  shall  we  see  in  this  but  a  preparation  for  the  reign 
of  the  spirit  .  .  .  which,  if  it  come  into  this  valley  of 
bones  lying  apart,  and  breathes  into  them,  as  the  Life  itself 
of  God,  will  they  not  come  together  and  live  ?  " 

Again,  from  an  occasional  article  of  much  later 
date,  "Our  Gospel  a  Gift  to  the  Imagination" : 


86         AMERICAN  LANDS  &*   LETTERS. 

"Nothing  makes  infidels  more  surely  than  the  spinning, 
splitting,  nerveless  refinements  of  theology.  This  endeavor 
to  get  the  truths  of  religion  away  from  the  imagination,  into 
propositions  of  the  speculative  understanding,  makes  a  most 
dreary  and  sad  history.  .  .  .  They  were  plants  alive  and 
in  flower,  but  now  the  flavors  are  gone,  the  juices  are 
dried,  and  the  skeleton  parts  packed  away  and  clarified  in  the 
dry  herbarium  called  theology." 

And,  in  the  same  connection,  is  a  warm  and 
gracious  eulogy  of  Bunyan  —  no  dogmatist  he! 
but  one  who  kindles  the  "  world's  imagination 
more  and  more  "  : 


"  His  Pilgrim  holds  on  his  way  still  fresh  and  strong  as 
ever,  nay,  fresher  and  stronger  than  ever,  never  to  be  put 
off  the  road  till  the  last  traveller  heavenward  is  conducted 


He  never  gave  up  the  consciousness  of  a  grand 
unshrinkable  supernaturalism  compassing  us  all 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end.  Under  the 
shadow,  or  the  beams  of  it  (oftenest  the  latter), 
he  walked  with  an  awed  step  all  his  life  long  — 
whether  up  the  central  aisle  of  North  Church, 
Hartford,  or  in  the  blaze  of  his  bountiful  June 
roses. 


BUSHNELVS  INDEPENDENCE.  87 

The  Man  and  the  Artist. 

But  there  was  much  of  interest  in  the  man 
Horace  Bushnell,  apart  from  his  pulpit  exalta 
tions  ;  there  was  infinite  tenderness  in  him ; 
gleams  of  it  show  in  the  familiar  letters  which 
color  the  charming  biography  which  his  daughter 
has  written ;  knowledge  of  it  is,  moreover,  forced 
upon  us  by  the  hearty  tone  of  the  tributes  to  him 
from  friends  and  companions.  But  with  all  the 
tenderness  in  him,  there  was  mingled  a  sturdy 
manliness  which  demanded  independent  ways  of 
thought  and  action ;  he  was  never  in  any  straits 
of  politics,  or  of  theologies,  another  man's  man  ; 
one  could  not  score  him  down  for  a  vote  or  a 
petition,  except  his  heart  and  judgment  went  with 
it ;  and  when  the  "  Association- West "  of  Fair- 
field  or  of  other  parts  whacked  at  him  with  their 
bludgeons  of  disapproval,  he  was  "  on  guard " 
with  his  fine  rapier  of  argument,  and  did  not 
always  offer  the  "  other  cheek  "  to  be  smitten. 

While  outspoken  in  his  views  on  public  ques 
tions,  he  was  not  constituted  for  a  good  working 
politician.  He  couldn't  combine  with  impure 


88          AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

elements,  whether  for  backing  a  bad  man  for 
office  or  in  shouldering  up  a  good  job  for  the 
print-folk  of  the  party.  He  was  not  only,  always 
and  everywhere,  intolerant  of  bare-faced  dishon 
esty,  but  equally  so  of  that  other  insidious  dis 
honesty  which  creeps  in  the  stockings  of  statutes 
to  its  quarry. 

But  this  fine-fibred  man  has  not  only  his 
battles  with  Consociations  and  Associations — who 
would  prune  and  adjust  or  pluck  away  his  theo- 
logic  plumage — he  has  also  his  battles  with  the 
New  England  climate  and  the  winds  that  blow 
in  March  through  the  Connecticut  Valley.  Once 
strongly  compacted,  his  studious  habits  have 
given  growth  to  weakness  of  lungs  and  of  throat, 
which  compel  rest  and  travel.  Southern  States, 
Europe,  and  California  all  give  their  spoils  to  his 
discerning  eyes  and  his  private  letters  (in  the 
pleasant  Biography). 

His  vocabulary,  full  and  rich,  gives  him  pig 
ments  of  the  rarest.  Language  indeed  is  a  pas 
sion  with  him  ;  and  he  sways  its  rhythmic  treas 
ures  to  his  purpose.  Music,  too,  impresses  him  in 
his  moments  of  exaltation,  as  a  Divine  Art : 


BUSH  NELL    ON  LANGUAGE.  89 

"  Oli,  if  I  had  the  voice  and  art  of  Albom  or  Jenny 
Lind "  [he  exclaimed,  in  a  letter  to  a  daughter  (p.  270, 
Life]  J,  "it  really  seems  to  me  that  I  could  make  a  new 
gospel  of  it  in  men's  bosoms,  out-preaching  all  preachers, 
and  swaying  the  multitudes  to  good." 

There  are  notable  things  in  the  Dissertation  on 
Language  by  which,  on  a  memorable  occasion,  he 
paved  the  way  to  his  theologic  defences  : 

"  All  words,"  he  says,  "are  in  fact  only  incarnations  or 
insensings  of  thought."  [And,  again]  "there  is  no  book  in 
the  world  that  contains  so  many  repugnances  or  antagonistic 
forms  of  assertion  as  the  Bible  Therefore,  if  any  man 
please  to  play  off  his  constrictive  logic  upon  it,  he  can  show 
it  up  as  the  absurdest  book  in  the  world.  But  whosoever 
wants,  on  the  other  hand,  really  to  behold  and  receive  all 
truth,  and  would  have  the  truth-world  overhang  him  as  an 
empyrean  of  stars,  complex,  multitudinous,  striving  antago 
nistically,  yet  comprehended,  height  above  height  and  deep 
under  deep,  in  a  boundless  score  of  harmony ;  what  man  so 
ever  .  .  reaches  with  true  hunger  after  this,  and  will 
offer  himself  to  the  many-sided  forms  of  Scripture  with  a 
perfectly  ingenuous  and  receptive  spirit — he  shall  find  his 
nature  flooded  with  senses,  vastnesses,  and  powers  of  truth 
such  as  it  is  greatness  to  feel." 

But  independent  of  the  ingenuity  of  his  Lan 
guage  talk  —  as  a  skirmishing  foil  to  ward  off 
theologic  objurgations — there  is  great  interest  and 


90         AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

philosophic  truth,  in  his  view  of  language,  and  of 
its  dependence  upon  the  current  of  intellectual 
advances  —  whithersoever  intellectual  struggles 
may  tend — keeping  pace  with  them  and  taking 
fulness  from  them.  Also  most  significant  and 
truthful  is  his  allegation  that  obscure  language — 
that  is,  language  heavily  weighted  with  explora 
tory  processes  of  thought  and  struggles  into  the 
domain  of  the  unknown — is  not  damnable  per  se. 
What  goes  after  roots  of  things  which  grow  out  of 
the  illimitable  and  unexplored,  must  be  obscure  ; 
what  is  tentative,  must  be  different  from  the 
familiar ;  what  seeks  to  fathom  new  seas,  must  be 
longer  than  what  measures  the  known  depths. 

It  is  a  wonderfully  fine  figure,  where  he  repre 
sents  the  commonplace,  clear  writer,  as  setting  his 
head  off  in  clean  silhouette  above  a  well-known 
horizon  line,  whereas  the  explorer  (i.e.,  the  man 
who  would  widen  range  of  thought)  carries  his 
head  against  dim,  mystic  cloudland,  by  reason  of 
which  he  may  show  vague,  shadowy  traits ;  but 
there  are  gleams  of  light,  coming  from  beyond — in 
those  shadowy  traits — full  of  beckoning  and  warn 
ing  for  those  who  are  themselves  eager  to  explore. 


BUSHNELUS  ART-LOVE.  91 

Again,  in  more  practical  mood,  he  says  : 

"  Never  take  a  model  to  be  copied.  .  .  .  Never  try  to 
create  a  fine  style.  .  .  .  But  if  you  can  have  great 
thoughts,  let  these  burst  the  shell  of  words,  if  they  must,  to 
get  expression.  And  if  they  are  less  rhythmic  when  ex 
pressed  than  is  quite  satisfactory,  mere  thought,  mere  head- 
work  will,  of  course,  have  its  triangulations,  or  ought  to 
have.  Add  now  great  inspirations,  great  movings  of  senti 
ment,  and  these,  just  as  long  as  the  gale  lasts,  will  set 
everything  gliding  and  flowing  —  whether  to  order  or  not. 
But  let  no  one  think  to  be  gliding  always.  A  good  prose 
motion  has  thumping  in  it." 

But  it  is  not  alone  in  language  that  this  godly 
man  is  an  adept.  At  some  point  in  that  turbulent 
stream  which  flows  out  from  Lake  Waramaug,  he 
built,  in  his  younger  days,  a  dam  for  his  father's 
fulling-mill ;  and  I  have  never  a  doubt  that  he 
matched  and  mated  the  stones  of  which  that  dam 
is  built  with  a  zeal  and  aptitude  that  should  make 
it  worth  looking  after  by  the  curious  even  now ; 
and  so  all  through  life,  whenever  he  had  words 
or  stones  or  flowers  or  trees  to  put  together,  he 
did  it  with  an  artist's  instinct. 

He  never  touches  Road-side  in  his  discourses 
about  New  England  but  he  trails  after  him  the 
fires  of  autumn  foliage  and  the  glow  of  summer 


92         AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

flowers.  He  never  tires  of  preaching  Beauty  and 
its  humanizing  and  civilizing  influence  for  coun 
try-folk.  He  loved  trees,  great  and  small,  and 
Nature's  own  verdant  cloaking  of  the  waste  places. 
Country  roads,  as  he  conceived  of  them,  should 
carry  hymns  and  sermons  and  hallelujahs  in  their 
cedars  and  draping  vines.  One  might  believe  that 
it  would  make  him  lie  uneasily  in  his  grave  if  he 
knew  of  the  vandalism  of  the  telegraph  people,  and 
the  yet  greater  vandalism  of  legislators  who  decree 
the  extirpation  of  skirting  coppices  of  vines  and 
plants  from  our  road-sides.  With  what  a  yearning 
of  the  heart  he  would  have  seen  this  despoilment 
of  the  old  and  charming  ruralities  of  our  country 
towns  !  This  yearning  for  the  bounties  and  the 
blessed  things  of  Nature  was  what  equipped  him 
and  encouraged  him  for  that  exploitation  of  the 
waste  places  in  his  home  city  of  Hartford,  which 
by  dint  of  his  assiduities  and  taste — and  their  full 
appreciation  by  the  authorities — gave  that  Con 
necticut  city  the  charming  little  park  which  car 
ries  its  green  welcome  to  the  eye  of  every  passing 
traveller,  and  perpetuates,  in  the  happiest  and 
tenderest  way,  the  memory  of  Horace  Bushnell. 


N.  P.   WILLIS.  95 

There  has  been  question  of  his  statue  thereabout, 
but  his  presence  is  richer  than  any  statue,  and  is 
all  over  the  place. 

A  Man  of  Other  Mettle. 

On  the  third  floor  of  old  North  College,  which 
carries  homely  and  honest  reminders  of  student 
life  at  Yale  seventy  years  ago — there  roomed  in 
Bushneirs  time,  (1827)  and  over  against  him,  in 
the  northwest  corner,  a  classmate  three  years  his 
junior,  who  contrasted  strongly  with  the  dark- 
haired,  independent,  sturdy,  perhaps  somewhat 
awkward,  man  who  hailed  from  Litchfield  County, 
and  whose  career  and  character  are  sketched  in 
these  last  pages. 

The  other  student  had  engaging  ways;  he  had 
blue  eyes  and  flaxen  hair  and  a  degage  manner, 
which  showed  other  associations  than  those  with 
farmers  by  Lake  Waramaug.  He  had  written 
poems,  too,  even  before  his  advent  to  college, 
which  had  been  published  in  his  father's  paper, 
the  Boston  Recorder,  and  thence  had  run,  by 
reason  of  the  picturesque  qualities  that  shone  in 
them,  through  half  the  prominent  journals  of  the 


96         AMERICAN  LANDS  &*   LETTERS. 

country.  His  Absalom,  a  tender  interpretation  of 
the  Scriptural  story  in  mellifluous  blank  verse, 
had  been  written  in  his  freshman  year,  and  showed 
a  grace  and  an  unction  that  took  it  into  all  the 
boudoirs  of  the  town.  Such  pleasant  employment 
doubtless  interfered  with  the  regular  curriculum  of 
study,  nor  does  it  appear  that  he  ever  had  large 
ambitions  in  that  direction;  a  strong  inclination 
for  social  life  and  its  festive  regalements  —  toward 
which  his  poems  opened  a  flowery  path  —  early  de 
clared  itself  in  him  and  never  had  abatement.  His 
diary  makes  note  *  of  a  collection  he  had  made  of 
French  slippers,  from  "  the  prettiest  feet  in  the 
world  (known  to  me)."  Such  things  do  not  pre 
pare  us  for  anything  like  engrossment  in  Freedom 
of  the  Will 

It  is  N.  P.  Willis  f  of  whom  we  are  speaking,  a 
Maine  man  by  birth,  but  passing  his  latter  boyhood 
in  Boston,  from  which  centre  of  heretical  doctrine 
(as  Connecticut  clergymen  counted  it)  his  father  — 

*  Beers  s  Life,  p.  52. 

f  Nathaniel  P.  Willis  ;  b.  1807  ;  d.  1867.  Scripture  Sketches, 
1827;  Pencilling*  by  the  Way,  1835-36;  Letters  from  Under  a 
Bridge,  1840  ;  Life  (by  Professor  Beers),  1885. 


N.  P.    WILLIS.  97 

who  was  rigidly  orthodox  —  sent  him  away  for  a 
collegiate  career  under  the  benign  Calvinism  of 
Yale.  We  cited  a  bit  of  color  from  his  early  diary; 
there  is  further  pleasant  mention  of  his  going  on 
his  winter  vacation  (1827)  to  New  York,  with  col 
lege  friends,  and  attending  a  brilliant  ball  at  the 
home  of  the  Mayor.  On  a  Saturday,  again,  he 
goes  to  a  fete  at  Dr.  Hosack's ;  on  New  Year's  Day 

O 

he  calls  on  everybody,  in  company  with  William 
Woolsey;  dines  at  George  Kichards's*  (in  St. 
John's  Park), 

•'  had  seat  next  the  beautiful  Miss  Adelaide,  and  enjoyed 
it  much.  They  live  in  the  French  style,  and  the  last  course 
was  sugar-plums." 

There  were  a  great  many  sugar-plums  in  his 
early  career ;  and  some  readers  have  thought  that 
his  biographer  may  have  given  undue  measure  to 
the  exhibit  of  such  lon-bons  ;  yet  the  story  of  his 
life  is  most  entertaining,  is  fair,  judicial,  as  full  as 
material  warranted  —  though  hardly  sympathetic 
enough  to  gratify  the  warm  lovers  of  this  master 

*  Beers 'a  Life,  pp.  50,  57. 


98 


AMERICAN  LANDS 


LETTERS. 


of  galloping  prose.  Few  men  could  have  written 
sympathetically  of  Willis.  Much  of  his  work 
was  brilliant  persiflage;  it  shrunk  under  critical 
touch.  Nor  was  it  easy  to  sketch  knowingly  this 


o  IP.  WELLES,  E§<G>; 

UN    A  SERIES    <DF    VIEWS 
ai 

V/E.  BART1ETT. 


y<mjy.  j«s  TOTOJAJ  cawrm  J 

LONDON. 

BT  0-EOBOE  VIBTUE    26  ITT  USNE. 
MAE  TIN  *  C?  HEW  -TOBK. 


WILLIS  AS  POET.  99 

poet's  contacts  with  social  life,  and  his  ambitions 
and  triumphs  there,  and  at  the  same  time  weigh 
understandingly  his  higher  tastes  and  accomplish 
ments.  Those  accomplishments  were  indeed  very 
real,  though  of  a  special  quality.  It  might  almost 
be  said  that  his  accomplishments  undid  him.  In 
his  latter  years  —  for  the  behest  of  admiring 
readers  —  he  was  over-fond  of  always  putting  his 
thought  (or  rather  his  observations  and  sugges 
tions)  into  a  finical  millinery  of  language  ;  charg 
ing  and  fatiguing  himself,  to  avoid  plainness  of 
speech — as  much  as  ever  an  accredited  modiste 
(who  has  studied  colors  all  her  life)  wearies  and 
worries  herself  to  kill  simplicities  by  the  aggrega 
tion  of  her  tints  and  furbelows. 

Willis  won  his  first  triumphs  as  a  poet  in  his 
younger  years ;  nor  can  I  forbear  putting  on 
record  this  little  fragment,  showing  very  much  of 
beauty  and  grace  : 

"  On  the  cross-beam  under  the  old  South  bell 
The  nest  of  a  pigeon  is  builded  well. 
In  summer  and  winter  that  bird  is  there, 
Out  and  in,  with  the  morning  air  : 
I  love  to  see  him  track  the  street, 
With  his  wary  eye  and  active  feet ; 


loo       AMERICAN  LANDS  fir-    LETTERS. 

And  I  often  watch  him  as  he  springs, 

Circling  the  steeple  with  easy  wings, 

'Till  across  the  dial  his  shade  has  passed 

And  the  belfry  edge  is  gained  at  last. 

'Tis  a  bird  I  love  with  its  brooding  note, 

And  the  trembling  throb  in  its  mottled  throat. 

Whatever  tale  in  the  bell  is  heard 

He  broods  on  his  folded  feet  unstirred, 

Or  rising  half  in  his  rounded  nest, 

He  takes  the  time  to  smooth  his  breast, 

Then  drops  again  with  filmed  eyes, 

And  sleeps  as  the  last  vibration  dies. 

I  would  that  in  such  wings  of  gold 

I  could  my  weary  heart  upfold ; 

And  while  the  world  throngs  on  beneath, 

Smooth  down  my  cares  and  calmly  breathe ; 

And  only  sad  with  others'  sadness, 

And  only  glad  with  others'  gladness. 

Listen,  unstirred,  to  knell  or  chime, 

And,  lapt  in  quiet,  bide  my  time." 


Journalist  and  Man  of  the   World. 

After  graduating  at  Yale  (1827),  Willis  did  some 
literary  work  in  Boston ;  at  first  as  would  seem  at 
the  instigation  of  Peter  Parley,  who  had  piloted 
so  many  young  people  over  London  Bridge  and 
into  regions  remote,  in  showy  Annuals,  Tokens, 
or  Souvenirs.  Willis  also  established  the  Amer- 


EARLY   WRITINGS   OF    WILLIS.          101 


N.  P.  Willis. 

From  a  photograph  loaned  by  Mr.  Peter  Gilsey. 

ican  Monthly,  wherein  his  falchion  of  a  pen  made 
its  first  slashes  at  those  socio-romantic  problems 
which  he  loved.  In  the  Annuals  we  find  him 


102        AMERICAN  LANDS  fir-   LETTERS. 

in  leasli  with  a  certain  Nathaniel  Hawthorne, 
whom  (D.  V.)  we  shall  again  encounter ;  such 
names,  too,  as  Rufus  Dawes,  Grenville  Mellen, 
James  Percival,  and  that  of  our  old  friend  Mrs. 
Sigourney,  bob  up  and  down  upon  the  pages 
which  set  forth  the  literary  delights  then  in  store. 
There  was  occasional  writing  by  Willis  for  the  old 
Boston  Recorder — not  yet  so  stiff  with  age,  as 
with  its  moral  tenets ;  and  possibly,  also,  for  that 
Youth's  Companion)  the  lively  babe  of  the  Re 
corder  office  (1827),  since  given  up  to  a  palatial  ma 
turity  which  delights  myriads  of  young  folk  who 
never  knew  the  kind  rigidities  of  the  Recorder. 

But  neither  tokens  nor  keepsakes,  brim  as  they 
might  with  lush  verse  and  luscious  engravings, 
nor  yet  his  American  Monthly,  did  graft  the  orna 
mental  graces  of  this  poet  securely  and  growingly 
upon  the  Boston  stock  of  thought.  The  magazine 
failed  for  lack  of  support  ;  and  there  was  a  wary, 
questioning  look  from  under  critical  Cambridge 
brows  at  the  dancing  and  easy  measures  of  this 
Yale  Hyacinth  ;  even  the  old  Park  Church,  re 
markably  free  from  Unitarian  proclivities,  was 
inclined  to  discipline  the  young  poet  of  Absalom 


GEORGE  P.    MORRIS. 


103 


George  P.  Morris. 

Front  an  engraving  by  Hollyer  after  a  drawing  by  Elliott. 

and  Hagar,  who  could  not  forego  his  liking  for  a 
good  theatrical  cast. 

All  this  ends  in  a  divorce  from  Boston  ;  the 
moribund  "Monthly,"  with  a  trail  of  Eastern 
debts,  was  joined  with  the  New  York  Mirror, 


104       AMERICAN  LANDS  &>   LETTERS. 


tinder  the  shrewd  directory  of  George  P.  Morris  * 
who  was  eminently  practical,  both  as  printer  and  as 

song-writer.  Willis 
never  made  a  truer 
friend,  or  one  who 
kept  by  him  more 
honestly  and  un 
flinchingly.  An 
other  associate  in 
this  enterprise  was 
Theodore  Fay,  sub- 
sequently  well 
known  by  several 
spirited  novels  f  and 
by  a  long  and  digni 
fied  diplomatic  ca 
reer.  The  new  jour 
nal,,  buoyant  with  some  decided  successes,  dis 
patched  Mr.  Willis  to  Europe  (1831),  with  a  guar- 


N.  P.  Willis  in  his  later  years. 

Copyright  by  Rockivood. 


*  George  P.  Morris,  b.  1802;  d.  1864.  Author  of  the 
favorite  song,  "Woodman,  spare  that  tree  !  " 

f  Theodore  S.  Fay,  b.  1807  ;  d  1898.  Norman  Leslie,  1835  ; 
Countess  Ida,  1840;  Hoboken,  1843;  Secretary  of  Legation, 
Berlin,  1837-53 ;  Minister  Resident,  Berne,  1853-61. 


TRAVELS   OF    WILLIS.  105 

antee  of  ten  dollars  per  week,  to  enrich  its  col 
umns  with  foreign  notes  ;  and  those  foreign  notes, 
under  the  guise  of  Pencilling s  by  the  Way,  or 
Inklings  of  Adventure,  or  other  such  sugges 
tive  naming,  are  what  chiefly  made  his  reputa 
tion  both  at  home  and  abroad.  They  were  fresh, 
piquant,  lively  ;  there  was  no  dulness  in  them, 
not  overmuch  reticence  :  he  opened  to  the  eyes  of 
curious  readers  shows  of  street  life,  of  fetes,  of 
whirling  coaches,  of  delightful  interiors  which 
were  engaging  and  appetizing,  and  what  they 
lacked  in  restraint,  they  gained  in  petillant  savors. 
But  he  is  not  accredited  to  England  alone ;  as 
attache  to  the  American  Legation  he  has  wide  en 
tree  and  a  good  passport  to  the  jollities  of  the 
Continent.  In  the  winter  of  1832-33  he  is  ranging 
up  and  down  through  Italy,  and  in  the  succeeding 
spring  boards  a  United  States  frigate,  by  invita 
tion,  for  a  Mediterranean  cruise.  Thereby  he  loit 
ers  along  the  shores  of  Sicily,  of  Crete,  of  Salamis  ; 
and  so,  rapt  in  that  charming  idleness  which  be 
longed  to  one  voyaging  on  old  sailing  ships,  and 
rioting  in  good  breezes  and  sunshine,  he  rides  up 
into  the  waters  of  the  Golden  Horn.  Mustapha 


io6       AMERICAN  LANDS  fr    LETTERS. 

deluges  him  with  attar  of  roses,  and  the  silken 
trousers  of  the  Grand  Bazaar  rustle  on  his  ear  ; 
narghilas,  spice  -  wood  beads,  and  embroidered 
slippers  complete  the  tale  of  delights  from  which 
he  wends  toward  Syrian  horizons  —  journeying 
with  Smyrniots  and  revelling  with  Gypsies  of 
Sardis.  All  this  tinkles  and  vibrates  most  musi 
cally  from  his  harp  of  travel. 

On  his  return  through  Italy  he  sees  much  of 
Landor,  then  domiciled  at  Florence,  and  cour 
teously  accepts  some  commission  from  him  with 
reference  to  a  book  then  in  course  of  publication  ; 
and  some  failings  or  neglect  thereanent,  on  the 
part  of  Willis,  lead  to  bitter  altercations.  The 
American  was  inept  at  all  businesses  ;  what  could 
be  done  by  sociabilities  or  kindnesses,  he  would 
do  ;  but  what  involved  promptitude,  stir,  swift 
efficiency,  was  not  so  sure  of  being  done. 

London,  Oivego,  and  Idleivild. 
It  is  in  1834  that  he  writes  :  * 

"  All  the  best  society  of  London  exclusives  is  open  to  me 
.  .  .  me !  without  a  sou  in  the  world  beyond  what  my 


Beers' s  Life,  etc.,  p.  148. 


PENCILLINGS  BY  THE    WAY.  107 

pen  brings  me.  ...  I  lodge  in  Cavendish  Square,  the 
most  fashionable  part  of  the  town,  paying  a  guinea  a  week 
for  my  lodgings,  and  am  as  well  off  as  if  I  had  been  the  son 
of  the  President,  with  as  much  as  I  could  spend  in  the  year." 

Through  Lander,  he  has  come  to  know  Lady 
Blessington,  and  all  the  habitues  of  Seamore  Place. 
He  makes  a  visit  to  Gordon  Castle,  and  the  lawns 
and  ladies,  and  grooms  and  belted  earls,  with  their 
chit-chat,  all  flash  into  his  "  Pencillings."  He 
makes  many  friends  in  many  stations  ;  his  sense  of 
the  decorous  is  a  very  live  and  wakeful  one  ;  Miss 
Mitford  says,  "he  is  like  the  son  of  a  peer  ! "  and 
it  is  certain  that  he  had  with  ladies  a  most  engag 
ing  deference  and  a  low,  caressing  manner  of 
speech  which  were  very  captivating.  His  knowl 
edge  of  little  convenances  was  all-embracing  and 
never  at  fault ;  how  a  hostess  should  carry  herself, 
how  she  should  throw  the  reins  of  talk — now  here, 
now  there ;  how  she  should  cover  the  awkward 
faux-pas  of  some  inapt  person  ;  nay,  the  very  sum 
mons  to  a  servant  or  the  gracious  way  of  strewing 
a  pretty  dust-fall  of  pleading  and  concealing  words 
over  a  crash  of  dishes,  or  of  scandal — all  this  he 
ferreted  and  fathomed  by  quick  social  instinct. 


io8       AMERICAN  LANDS 


LETTERS. 


And  this  instinct  filtered  through  his  published 
lines  in  what  matter-of-fact  people  would  call  a 
pretty  constant  over-estimate  of  the  exterior  em 
bellishments  of  life.  My  Lady  Ravelgold's  tie  or 
her  brodequin,  or  the  crest  upon  her  carriage  door, 
or  her  smile  of  conge  to  an  unwelcome  suitor, 


I 
Fragment  of  a  Letter  from  N.  P.  Willis. 

would  engage  from  him  more  serious  attention  than 
any  discourse  from  her  on  poetry  or  on  ethics. 

It  was  not  until  1836  that  Willis  returned  to 
America,  bringing  a  charming  and  estimable  Eng 
lish  lady  as  a  bride.*  The  next  year  saw  him 

*  His  marriage  relations  were  most  happy ;  this  was  also 
signally  true  of  his  second  marriage  (to  the  adopted  daughter 
and  niece  of  Hon.  Joseph  Grinnell)  in  184G. 


UNDER  A  BRIDGE.  109 

planted  in  a  delightful  country  house  in  Tioga 
County,  in  the  midst  of  that  lovely  region  of 
meadows,  vales,  and  wooded  hills,  where  the  Sus- 
quehanna  sweeps  northward  over  the  border  of 
New  York  to  gather  in  its  tribute  from  the  Owego 
and  other  mountain  streams.  From  this  home 
were  written  in  those  days  his  Letters  from  Under 
a  Bridge;  nor  did  he  ever  write  more  winning 
periods.  That  old  word-quest  (born  in  him)  and 
susceptibility  to  lingual  harmonies  caught  some 
thing  new  from  the  bird-notes  and  the  babbling 
streams  of  Tioga.  I  dare  say  there  was  an  inapt- 
ness  for  farming,  and  a  June  baiting  of  his  work 
ing  oxen  "upon  potatoes"  (when  they  should 
have  had  stiffer  food)  ;  but  never  did  the  swirls 
of  the  Susquehanna's  currents  have  a  juster 
limner  or  the  forest  fires  a  redder  blazon  of 
words. 

All  this,  however,  palls  upon  his  travelled  tastes. 
Book-making,  and  dramatic  work,  and  paragraphs 
for  the  Mirror  are  done  awkwardly  and  at  arm's 
end  in  Glen-Mary  ;  so  the  town  and  its  noises 
swallow  him  again.  A  wonderfully  jaunty  air  he 
carried,  moving  easily,  whether  on  Broadway  or  in 


i  io       AMERICAN  LANDS'  &>   LETTERS. 

my  lady's  salon ;  an  impossible  figure  (as  would 
seem)  for  the  undress  of  the  country. 

Nor  were  there  signs  of  patient  labor,  mental  or 
physical.  He  "  dashed  "  at  things  ;  his  intuitions 
often  good,  keen ;  but  they  have  presentment 
only  in  "glimpses,"  "inklings."  Even  his  more 
elaborate  tales  (if  the  word  be  not  too  strenuous) 
are  made  long  by  aggregations ;  there  is  no  well- 
considered  logical  sequence  of  ideas  or  coherence — 
no  dovetailing  of  character  or  of  incidents.  He  im 
presses  one  as  a  bird  of  too  fine  plumage  for  much 
scratching.  His  best  is  only — "  By  the  Way." 

People  nowadays,  knowing  him  only  by  his 
tessellated  paragraphs,  can  hardly  understand  how 
dominant  his  name  and  repute  were  in  the  thir 
ties  and  forties  ;  a  Corypheus  of  letters  !  Always 
sought  after  as  patron;  always  kindly  to  beginners, 
and  ready  with  helping  words;  always  cited,  yet 
not  noisily  insistent,  or  placarding  himself  by  loud 
braggadocio ;  never  exploiting  his  personality  for 
business  purposes  ;  having  scorn  for  all  vulgarities 
— even  noise.  There  is  a  half  quarrel  with  Morris 
in  those  days  (duly  mended) ;  a  falling  off  in  his 
book  perquisites ;  a  streaming-in  upon  his  prov- 


LAST  YEARS  OF   WILLIS.  113 

ince  of  newer  pens  and  purposes  ;  a  death  (that  of 
the  young  wife)  which  shakes  him;  a  new  burst  of 
consoling  travel  —  to  England,  to  Germany  ;  and, 
in  due  time,  another  home,  and  another  new  and 
happy  domestic  shrine  upon  a  bight  of  the  Hud 
son — looking  out  upon  that  stretch  of  river  which 
sweeps  from  West  Point  to  Fishkill ;  he  called  it 
"  Idlevvild." 

There  he  wrought,  as  the  years  waned,  and  as 
the  blight  of  ill-health  slowly  overshadowed  him, 
upon  the  familiar  topics,  with  the  old  lightsome 
touches — whatever  griefs  or  troubles  might  beset 
him.  Sometimes  breaking  away  again  from  his 
picturesque  covert  of  a  home  to  the  wrangles  and 
din  of  the  city  (in  the  belief  that  close  contact 
would  kindle  his  sleeping  fancies  or  put  nerve  into 
his  weakened  hand) ;  but  at  last,  under  the  cumu 
lating  threats  of  disease,  stealing  away  for  final 
lodgement  to  his  lair  in  the  Highlands.  His 
friend  Morris  is  dead  (1864);  his  own  infirmities 
are  grappling  him  closer ;  he  can  no  longer  muster 
the  kindly  picturesque  forces  with  which  he  had 
written  out  his  Hints  for  Convalescents,  or  his 
Melanies  of  rhyme,  or  his  Chit-chat  of  the  hour. 


ii4        AMERICAN  LANDS  &*    LETTERS. 

It  was  all  ended  for  him  (1867) ;  it  seemed,  too,  as 
if  the  bloody  markings  of  the  war  had  blotted  out, 
for  many  a  year,  the  roseate  tracery  of  his  pen 
and  of  his  teeming  fancy. 

Three  Neiv  Yorkers. 

Among  other  names  belonging  to  this  epoch, 
and  almost  lost  now,  let  me  bring  back  that  of  the 
famous  traveller  Stephens,*  who  though  bred  a 
lawyer,  and  associated  with  merchants,  yet  told 
such  stories  of  his  wayfaring  and  adventures  —  in 
Arabia,  in  Poland,  in  Egypt,  and  later  in  the  new 
regions  of  Central  America — as  to  enlist  thousands 
of  readers  all  over  England  and  America.  What 
he  wrote  was  notable,  not  so  much  for  its  rhe 
torical  finish  as  for  its  straight-forward,  earnest, 
slap-dash  way  of  making  you  know  his  meaning 
and  share  in  all  his  joys  and  unhappinesses  of 
travel.  In  later  life  he  returned  to  his  earlier 
business  and  professional  associations — was  active 
President  of  the  newly  laid-down  Panama  rail- 

*JohnL.  Stephens,  b.  1805;  d.  1852.  Incidents  of  trav 
el  in  Egypt,  Arabia  Petrcea*  etc.,  1837;  Incidents  of  Travel 
in  Central  America,  1841. 


J.  L.  STEPHENS. 


Monument  to  Stephens,  Chauncey,  and  Aspinwall  at  Colon. 

From  a  photograph  loaned  by  Mr.  S.  Denting. 

road.  At  Colon  there  is  a  monument  commemora 
tive  of  this  man  of  theodolites  and  of  books  ;  while 
a  giant  cotton- wood  is  still  pointed  out  to  travellers 
over  the  Isthmus  as  "the  Stephens  Tree."* 

*  The  original  lay-out  of  the  road  involved  destruction  of 
this  tree ;  but  the  admiration  of  Mr.  Stephens  for  this  Mon 
arch  of  the  woods  was  so  great,  that  he  ordered  a  slight 
diversion  of  the  line. 


ii6       AMERICAN  LANDS  fr   LETTERS. 

The  name  calls  to  mind  a  fellow  of  his  in  the 
Historical   Society  —  more    given    to   books,   but 


"The  Stephens  Tree." 

a  photograph  loaned  by  Mr.  S.  Denting: 


sympathizing  in  all  his  archaeological  quests.      I 
refer   to  that   quiet,   scholarly  man  *  who,   about 


*JohnR.  Bartlett,  b.  (Providence,  R.  I.)   1805;  d.  1886 
Dictionary   of  Americanisms,  1850    (revised  edition,  1877). 


CHARLES  F.  HOFFMAN.  117 

1840,  had  his  book-shop  under  the  Astor  House  on 
Broadway,  stocked  with  what  was  best  worth  buy 
ing  from  British  publishers,  and  drawing  to  its 
shady  depths  such  men  as  George  P.  Marsh,  and 
Dr.  Francis,  with  Mr.  Tuckerman,  and  the  elo 
quent  Dr.  Hawks.  This  book-lover  afterward  did 
good  service  in  determining  the  Mexican  boun 
dary  ;  but  the  work  by  which  he  is  probably  best 
known  is  the  Dictionary  of  Americanisms,  a  pains 
taking  and  (for  its  time)  authoritative  work. 

Into  that  Astor  store  there  must  have  gone, 
from  time  to  time,  in  those  days,  a  spectacled, 
keen-sighted  man,  halting  a  little  (for  he  had 
lost  a  limb  in  some  cruel  accident),  who  had  done 
work  with  Willis  on  the  Mirror,  and  better  work 
on  his  own  American  magazine — known,  too,  for 
certain  novels  (the  Greyslaer  among  them)  and 
known  of  all  frolic-loving  college  boys  by  his  jing 
ling  song  of 

"  Sparkling  and  bright  in  liquid  light, 
Does  the  wine  our  goblets  gleam  in." 

This  was  poor  Hoffman,*  who,  it  may  interest 

*  Charles  Fenno  Hoffman,  b.  1806 ;  d.  1884.  Greyslaer. 
1840;  The  Vigil  of  Faith,  and  other  Poems,  1842. 


ii8        AMERICAN  LANDS  <Sr-   LETTERS. 


the  reader  to  know,  was  the  half-brother  of  that 
beautiful  fiancee  of  Washington  Irving,  whose 
death  so  clouded  that  author's  early  years.  After 
much  good  and  some  brilliant  literary  work  (1834- 
47)  Hoffman  was  smitten  by  some  mental  disease, 

which  involved  hos 
pital  supervision ;  and 
he  found  this  under 
such  kindly  hands 
that  he  lingered  for 
thirty-seven  years  at 
Harrisburg.  I  saw 
him  there,  in  the  lat 
ter  third  of  that  long 
interval  between  life 


John  R.  Bartlett. 

From  an  engraving  by  Buttre. 


and  death,  his  physi 
cal   buoyancy   not 

broken  down,  living  amid  a  great  host  of  illusions  ; 

his  mind  placid,  but  distraught. 


Southrons  and  Dr.   Ware. 

Another  author,  at  one  time  having  great  pop 
ularity  —  who  in  summer  days  used  to  voyage  on 


/ 


From  an  engraving  by  Dick  after  the  portrait  by  Inmai 


WILLIAM   G1LMORE  SIMMS.  121 

occasions  to  New  York  to  look  after  the  printing 
of  his  novels  of  Guy  Rivers,  or  the  Yemassee — was 


William  Gilmore  Simms. 

From  a  daguerreotype. 


122        AMERICAN  LANDS  fr   LETTERS. 

the  brisk  and  alert  Simms*  of  South  Carolina. 
He  was  full  of  strong  self-assertion,  and  though  a 
most  friendly,  hospitable  man,  carried  in  his  step 
and  speech  a  good  deal  of  the  combative  spirit 
and  the  audacities  which  he  put  so  cleverly  into 
the  pages  of  his  tales  of  the  Revolution.  In  the 
present  revival  of  Colonial  studies  we  may  possi 
bly  look  for  a  new  cult  of  the  author  of  Melli- 
champe. 

Another  strong  exponent  of  Southern  literary 
forces  in  that  time  was  Lawyer  Grimke,f  of  Hugue 
not  blood,  who  had  been  educated  at  Yale ;  he 
was,  in  a  degree,  a  pet  of  old  Dr.  D wight,  sharing 
in  some  of  his  horse-back  rides  through  New  Eng 
land,  and  paying  back  the  attention  by  an  elo 
quent  though  somewhat  efflorescent  <£.  B.  K. 
address  (1830),  setting  forth  the  superiority  of 
sacred  literature  to  either  classic  or  scientific 
ranges  of  study.  Nor  does  he  omit,  in  those 
days  of  "  nullification,"  to  put  saving  clauses  of 
sound  Unionism  in  his  discourse  : 

*  William  Gilmore  Simms,  b.    (Charleston)  1806;  d.  1870 
Lyrical  Poems,  1827.     The  Yemassee,  1835. 
t  Thomas  Smith  Grimke,  b.  1786  ;  d.  1834. 


Thomas  Smith  Grimke. 


THOMAS  s.  GRIMK£.  125 

" .  .  .  If  we  covet  for  our  country  the  noblest,  pur 
est,  loveliest  literature  the  world  has  ever  seen,  such  a  liter 
ature  as  shall  honor  God  and  bless  mankind  .  .  .  then 
let  us  cling  to  the  Union  of  these  States,  with  a  patriotic 
love,  a  scholar's  enthusiasm,  with  a  Christian's  hope." 

This  language  would  have  sounded  very  strange 
ly  thirty  years  later,  coming  from  a  literary  rep 
resentative  of  the  Carolinas  !  He  was  radical  in 
many  directions  ;  advocating,  among  the  first  in 
America,  an  improved  phonetic  spelling,  which 
would  have  delighted  our  veteran  Dr.  Marsh,  and 
have  given  an  academic  colic  to  some  of  our 
youthful  professors.  He  was  also  a  non-resistance 
man,  out-doing  Tolstoi'  himself  in  this  direc 
tion —  though  his  father,  Colonel  Grimke,  had 
fought  bravely  and  continuously  through  the 
War  of  the  Revolution.  A  sister  of  this  Carolina 
litterateur  was  a  woman  of  remarkable  energy 
and  spirit,  giving  freedom  to  her  slaves,  and 
rivalling  the  most  zealous  of  Northern  agitators 
in  her  advocacy  of  general  emancipation.  Her 
brilliant  brother  died  in  the  prime  of  life  —  of 
cholera  —  while  on  some  educational  mission  into 
the  wilds  of  Ohio  (1834),  not  then  developed 


126       AMERICAN  LANDS  6-   LETTERS. 

into  the  nursery  ground  of  presidents  and  states 
men. 

Kennedy,*  of  Maryland,  was  a  genial  contempo 
rary  of  the  last,  who  came  to  high  political  prefer 
ment  —  a  most  genial,  kindly  man,  who  wrote  with 
grace,  and  who  threw  a  good  deal  of  the  humor 
and  easy  persiflage  that  equip  Bracebridge  Hall 
around  his  sketches  of  old  Virginia  life. 

Dr.  Bird,f  a  physician  of  Philadelphia  (where 
the  arts  of  Hippocrates  and  of  the  muses  seem 
easily  to  weld  themselves)  J  wrote  a  bouncing  and 
declamatory  tragedy,  Spartacus  —  made  famous 
by  the  loud  histrionics  of  Forrest,  in  the  days 
when  Martin  Van  Buren  held  the  Presidential 
chair.  He  wrote  also  one  or  two  romances  of  the 
Aztec  and  Mexican  times,  which  won  the  high 
commendation  of  so  competent  a  judge  as  Prescott. 

In  New  York  —  where  our  Northward  trend  of 

*John  P.  Kennedy;  b.  1795;  d.  1870.  Swallow-Barn, 
1832 ;  Horseshoe  Robinson,  1835. 

t  Robert  Montgomery  Bird,  b.  1803;  d.  1854.  Calavar, 
1834;  Infidel,  1835. 

\  Instance :  the  two  Drs.  Rush  (Benjamin  and  James), 
Dr.  Bird,  Dr.  Caspar  Wistar,  Dr.  Garretson,  and  Drs.  J.  K. 
and  S.  W.  Mitchell. 


engraving  by  IVhelpley. 


WILLIAM   WARE. 


129 


travel  carries  us  —  in  those  days  when  Miss  Fanny 
Kemble  had  found  her  way  thither,  and  when 
Forrest  made  the  boards  of  the  old  Park  Theatre 
tremble  with  his  "Spartacus,"  and  "Gladiator" — 


NEW.YORK 

MONTHLY    MAGAZINE. 


the  blue-covered  Knickerbocker  Magazine,  with 
its  Dutchman  in  his  Dutch  chair,  was  a  fresh, 
new  venture,  with  one  of  the  clever  Clark  twin- 
brothers  guiding  its  currents,  inviting  the  aids  of 
Caleb  Cushing,  of  Park  Benjamin,  of  the  witty 
"John  Waters/'  and  especially  of  that  William 


130       AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

Ware,  whom  we  found  preaching  good  Unitar- 
ianism  in  Chambers  Street  to  benighted  New 
Yorkers— in  days  when  Bryant  was  battling  with 
the  Post  and  with  adverse  fates.  And  what  Will 
iam  Ware  *  wrote  in  his  Letters  from  Palmyra 
and  his  Probus  is  worthy  of  special  note  and  of  a 
re-reading.  His  work  was  scholarly  and  careful ; 
he  deals  with  scenes  similar  to  those  now  made 
familiar  by  kindred  pictures  in  Quo  Vadis.  But 
Dr.  Ware,  with  all  his  vividness  and  energy,  does 
nowhere  obtrude  such  heated  exhibits  of  the  "lusts 
of  the  flesh "  as  smoke  and  sizzle  on  the  pages  of 
the  Polish  novelist. 

In  1837  Dr.  Ware  returned  to  Massachusetts ; 
was  for  some  time  editor  of  the  Christian  Ex 
aminer,  and  died  in  Cambridge.  We  shall  follow 
him  thither  in  our  next  chapter,  on  our  hunt  after 
that  coterie  of  worthies  who  equipped  Transcen 
dentalism  with  its  best  stores,  and  out  of  whose 
teachings  and  stirrings  of  the  intellectual  forces  of 


*  Rev.  William  Ware;  b.  1797;  d.  1852.  Palmyra  Let 
ters,  1837.  Probus  (now  known  as  Zenolia  and  Aurelian} 
1839. 


WILLIAM  WARE. 


131 


the  old  Bay  State  came  the  establishment  of  the 
Brook-Farm  project,  and  the  subsequent  develop 
ment  of  the  old  battle-town  of  Concord  into  a 


nursing  ground  for  new  literary  endeavors;  and 
finally,  within  times  we  can  all  remember,  making 
that  town  the  nestling-place  of  many  of  our  most 
hallowed  literary  memories. 


CHAPTER  III. 

IN  an  upper  corner  of  one  of  the  few  remain 
ing  buildings  of  the  ancient  architectural 
regime  at  Yale  —  when  there  was  uniformity  (if 
ugliness),  and  where  one  was  not  disturbed  by  a 
variance  of  style,  as  large  and  multitudinous  as 
the  caprices  of  the  respective  builders  or  donors 
—  we  found  two  Seniors,  of  whom  we  had  some 
what  to  say.  One — swart,  lithe,  with  muscles 
toughened  by  exposures  on  the  Litchfield  hills  ; 
the  other  full  of  easy,  social  flexibilities,  who  had 
written  poetry  of  religious  flavors  and  was  full 
of  the  rhythmic  graces  that  belonged  to  all  his 
speech,  and  all  his  action. 

The  first  of  these  twain  (Dr.  Bushnell),  through 
his  college  career,  was  a  little  distrustful  of  his 
religious  stand-point,  but  ripened  at  last  into  a 
spirituality  and  an  over-leap  of  dogmatic  barriers, 

which  put  the  watch-dogs  of  the  Consociations  in 
132 


RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON.  135 

a  lively  clamor  at  his  heels ;  but  which  finally  — 
after  an  orderly  life  of  zeal  and  good  works  —  left 
behind  him  a  track  of  light  which  outshines  the 
traces  of  many  honest  but  over-frighted  dignitaries 
who  girded  at  him  with  sharp  theologic  quills. 

Mr.  Willis,  the  second  of  these  collegians  (but 
younger  by  some  three  years)  scaled  all  the  social 
heights  —  whether  in  the  drawing-rooms  of  his  col 
lege  town,  or  in  salons  beyond  the  sea ;  found  easy 
triumphs  wherever  he  went — giving  to  convention 
alities  undue  weight  and  worship  —  taking  position 
easily  at  the  head  of  the  lesser  belles-lettres  cote 
ries  of  his  day,  but  burdening  his  own  reputation 
by  heaps  of  abounding  Hurry-graphs,  thus  obscur 
ing  and  blurring  the  delightful  piquancies  which 
belong  to  Letters  from  under  a  Bridge. 

Other  names  and  other  work  —  of  varying  im 
portance  —  engaged  our  attention  until  the  author 
of  Prolus,  with  scholarly  touch  and  guidance,  led 
us  back  to  the  east  winds  of  Boston. 

A  New  England  Sage. 

On  the  south  end  of  the  block  in  Boston, 
bounded  by  Avon,  Chauncey,  and  Summer  Streets 


136       AMERICAN  LANDS  fr   LETTERS. 

(where  Hovey  &  Co.  now  sell  "dry-goods"),  there 
stood  early  in  this  century  a  parsonage-house  with 
a  great  garden  and  fruit-trees  around  it.  The 
clergyman  who  lived  there  had  come  from  Concord ; 
and  on  a  day  (1803)  when  he  was  dining  out  with 
the  worshipful  Governor  Caleb  Strong,  there  was 
born  to  him  a  son,  who  was  in  due  time  christened 
Ralph  Waldo.*  When  the  son  was  only  eight,  his 
father  died  ;  the  widow,  with  six  children,  and 
shortened  means,  moved  away  from  the  pleasant 
orcharding  the  boy  had  known,  to  another  and 
lesser  home  in  Boston.  Thence  the  boy  drove  his 
mother's  cow,  day  by  day,  to  pasturage  upon  the 
common  ;  and  he  shared  one  over-coat  with  his 
brother  Edward —they  wearing  it  by  turns  — as 
the  weather  or  out-of-door  duties  demanded.  But 
such  buckling  with  adverse  fates  and  weathers  gave 
nerve  to  the  lad ;  and  when  he  goes  to  Harvard 
(1817)  he  is  not  shamefaced  to  be  "fag"  to  the 
President,  and  waiter  at  the  Commons.  He  is 
scholarly,  though  he  "  hates  mathematics  ; "  he 

*  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  b.  1803 ;  d.  1882.  Nature,  1836 ; 
Poems,  1846 ;  Representative  Men,  1850 ;  Conduct  of  Life, 
1860.  Biography  by  O.  W.  Holmes  ;  also  by  Cabot. 


RALPH    WALDO  EMERSON. 


137 


Emerson. 

From  a  portrait  by  ffawes. 

has  his  period  of  school-keeping,  and  chastises  a 
dolt  of  a  boy,  with  only  the  placid  utterance   of 


138       AMERICAN  LANDS  6-  LETTERS. 

"sad,  sad  I"  Later  he  follows  the  theologic  trend 
of  his  fathers,  and  in  1829  is  ordained  as  Aid  to 
Rev.  Henry  Ware  (brother  of  the  author  of  Pro- 
bus)  in  the  old  North  Church. 

Of  his  early  preaching,  all  accounts  agree  in 
regard  to  its  charm  —  of  voice,  of  homely  elegance ; 
it  was  full  of  sincerity  and  straightforwardness  ; 
"  as  if  an  angel  spoke  and  prayed/'  said  one  ;  rather 
ethical  than  devotional,  but  largely  satisfying  to 
those  over-used  to  theologic  sermonizing,  and  to 
a  threshing  of  old  straw.  He  was  always  search 
ing  for  something  winning  to  say,  on  the  side 
of  virtue,  and  of  that  religion  which  grew  out 
of  a  recognition  of  the  kindly  fatherhood  of 
God. 

But  he  does  not  keep  a  pastorate.  There  is  a 
chafing  under  the  harness  ;  somewhiles  a  suspicion 
that  his  conventional  utterances  in  prayer  are  not 
earnest  and  true,  but  carry  a  taint  of  hypocrisy  in 
them  ;  again,  there  is  a  doubt  as  to  his  practical 
efficiencies  ;  once  —  the  well-authenticated  story 
runs  —  he  is  summoned  for  consoling  offices  to  a 
brother  of  the  Church  in  articulo  mortis ;  know 
ing  nothing  of  his  past  history  or  habitudes,  he 


EMERSON  AS  PASTOR.  139 

hesitates,  he  falters,  in  such  way  that  the  dying 
parishioner  broke  out  — fuming — "Young  man, 
if  you  don't  know  your  duty,  you  had  better  go 
home  ! "  The  largest  duty  in  his  eye,  was  to  be 
truthful  and  honest ;  he  revolted  at  the  "  official 
goodness  "  of  the  ministerial  office.  * 

Again,  there  was  something  in  the  administra 
tion  of  the  rite  of  the  Communion  which  made 
him  halt ;  there  was  question  in  his  subtle  mind 
of  its  authorization  ;  perhaps  a  question  of  its 
efficiency  —  no  matter  which ;  his  mind  was 
brought  to  pause ;  and  the  pause  brought  doubt 
and  abstention;  so  comes  a  severance  of  Church 
ties,  but  no  loss  of  benignity  or  kindliness  on 
either  side. 

I  find  it  hard  to  imagine  him  trying  to  accom 
modate  his  doctrine  to  the  approval  of  this  or  that 
deacon,  or  of  this  or  that  consociation  or  synod. 
In  fact,  non-conformity  was  an  early-growing  and 
very  pronounced  quality  in  him.  He  could  hardly 
have  been  other  than  a  non-conformist,  in  what 
soever  church  he  had  ministered. 

*  Cabot,  vol.  i.,  p.  164. 


HO       AMERICAN  LANDS  &*   LETTERS. 

A  pleasant  little  drift  of  European  travel  comes 
next  (1833)  into  the  life  of  our  Sage,  in  the  course 
of  which  we  hear  him  lifting  up  his  voice  over  the 
hard  heads  of  Scottish  listeners  in  a  Unitarian 
chapel  of  Edinboro  ;  and  more  noticeably,  we  hear 
him  talking  —  half  the  night  through  —  with  Car- 
lyle,  at  that  master's  early  home  of  Craigenputtoch, 
where  Jane  Welsh  (after  six  years  of  wifehood) 
was  chafing  at  the  solitude,  and  welcoming  the 
" angel  visitor"  while  the  winds  of  Dumfries 
whistled  over  the  waste.  It  would  have  been 
worth  somewhat  to  listen  to  that  notable  Craigen- 
puttoch  talk  ;  —  the  young  American  zealot,  wor 
shipful,  an  old  admiration  gleaming  in  his  eyes, 
yet  full  of  probing,  and  testing  queries  ;  while  the 
shaggy,  keen-sighted  Scot  —  curiously  charmed  by 
this  sleek  serene  young  New  Englander  —  parries 
his  inquisitive  thrusts  at  mysteries,  and  plants  his 
square  blows  at  the  Sect-ism  (whether  Calvinistic 
or  other)  whose  votaries  are  clad  in  strait-jackets, 
and  that  would  put  its  own  limitations  upon  the 
large,  dominating  Divine  effluence  —  all  about  us 
and  in  us  —  and  which  withers  theologic  dogma 
as  in  a  furnace.  Yet  that  visit  to  Oraigenputtoch 


EMERSON  AT  CONCORD.  141 

was  the  germ  of  a  great  friendship,  whose  issues 
are  in  a  charming  book  *  fronted  by  the  best  por 
trait  of  the  querulous  Scot  that  I  know. 

There  was  not  much  preaching  after  Emer 
son's  return,  until  he  opened  upon  his  career  of 
lay-preaching,  with  head-quarters  at  Concord. 

Emerson   at    Concord. 

Those  head-quarters  were  at  the  first  in  the  old 
parsonage  which  his  grandfather  had  built  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  last  century  —  not  many  years 
before  the  famous  Concord  fight  (April,  1775),  of 
which  the  monument  now  gleams  through  the 
trees  a  little  way  westward  of  the  parsonage.  That 
grandfather  Emerson  who  built  the  house  was 
scarce  thirty-two  when  the  Concord  battle  befell ; 
and  he  was  plucky  as  well  as  prayerful ;  would 
have  gone  himself  to  the  fight  by  the  bridge  if  his 
zealous  parishioners  and  his  young  wife  would 
have  permitted.  Next  year,  however,  this  militant 
parson  broke  away  from  bonds,  enlisted  for  the 

*  The    Correspondence   of    Thomas    Carlyle    and    Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson,  2  vols.     Boston,  1883. 


142       AMERICAN  LANDS   &   LETTERS. 

march  to  Ticonderoga,  but  falling  ill  by  the  way, 
died  in  Vermont  (1776). 

The  widow  two  years  thereafter  was  wooed  and 
won  by  the  new  minister  *  to  the  Concord  parish, 
who  kept  the  parsonage  awake  to  its  wonted  offices 
for  over  thirty  years  —  preaching  his  last  sermon 
when  over  ninety.  It  was  to  the  home  of  this 
veteran  preacher  and  teacher  that  Ealph  Waldo 
Emerson  came  in  1834  to  meditate  —  to  roam  by 
the  leisurely  flowing  river  which  skirted  the  or 
chard  of  the  house,  and  to  put  into  its  final  shape 
his  first  little  " azure"  book  on  Nature.  There 
too  —  as  we  shall  find  presently  —  came,  after  the 
death  of  the  old  incumbent,  another  newly  mar 
ried  young  writing  man  who  was  to  make  all 
memories  of  the  place  forever  green  by  his  Mosses 
from  an  Old  Manse. 

Carlyle  called  Emerson's  Nature  azure  colored 
—  perhaps  from  its  first  binding ;  perhaps,  too,  by 
a  stroke  of  poetic  finesse,  characterizing  the  book 
as  tearing  open  great  rifts  in  the  clouds  that  com 
monly  beset  us,  and  bathing  our  spirits  in  the 
"blue"  beyond.  However  this  be,  there  seems 
*  Rev.  Ezra  Ripley. 


EMERSON'S  "NATURE."  143 

to  be  something  delightfully  qualitative  in  the 
word  —  as  if  the  "  azure  "  with  all  its  reaches  and 
its  mystery,  were  not  only  hemming  us  in,  while 
we  read,  but  penetrating  and  baptizing  us. 

That  book  of  Nature  has  perhaps  more  of  logi 
cal  form  than  his  later  writings  ;  scholastic  meth 
ods  —  of  thirdlys  and  f ourthlys  —  not  yet  given 
up,  and  he  trying  hard  to  measure  his  observations 
or  reflections  by  rulings  of  teachers.  All  these  he 
left ;  not  with  spurning,  not  with  scorn,  but  by 
inevitable  growth  away  from  them  :  the  cork- 
jacket  of  the  schools  trailed  by  him  loosely  till 
his  own  active  buoyancy  made  him  unobservant 
of  the  loss  when  it  fell  away  and  drifted  behind. 

But  even  thus  early  his  later  fashion  of  seer- 
ship  declares  itself ;  and  his  most  haunting  words 
are  those  which  have  no  envolvement  in  pre 
scribed  ranks,  but  blaze  out  with  singleness  of 
flame.  Thus,  in  his  very  first  chapter  — 

"  If  a  man  would  be  alone  let  him  look  at  the  stars." 
"In  the  presence  of  Nature,  a  wild  delight  runs  through 
the  man  in  spite  of  real  sorrows.  ...  In  the  wilderness 
I  find  something  more  dear  and  connote  than  in  streets  or 
villages.  ...  Its  effect  is  like  that  of  a  higher  thought, 
on  a  better  emotion  coming  over  me,  when  I  was  thinking 


144       AMERICAN  LANDS  &*   LETTERS. 

justly  or  doing  right.  .  .  .  [Again]  To  a  man  laboring 
under  calamity,  the  heat  of  his  own  fire  hath  sadness  in  it. 
There  is  a  kind  contempt  of  the  landscape  felt  by  him  who 
has  just  lost  by  death  a  dear  friend." 

Yet  again  in  pretty  tracery  of  words  which  loop 
together  engagingly  his  mystic  revels  of  thought  — 

"  In  other  hours,  Nature  satisfies  the  soul  purely  by  its 
loveliness.  ...  I  have  seen  the  spectacle  of  morning 
from  the  hill-top  over  against  my  house,  from  daybreak  to 
sunrise,  with  emotions  which  an  angel  might  share.  The 
long  slender  bars  of  cloud  float  like  fishes  in  the  sea  of  crim 
son  light.  From  the  earth  as  a  shore  I  look  cut  into  that 
silent  sea.  I  seem  to  partake  its  rapid  transformations : 
the  active  enchantment  reaches  my  dust,  and  I  dilate  and 
conspire  with  the  morning  wind.  .  .  .  The  dawn  is  my 
Assyria;  the  sunset  and  moonrise  my  Paphos,  and  unim 
aginable  realms  of  faerie ;  broad  noon  shall  be  my  England 
of  the  senses  and  the  understanding ;  the  night  shall  be  my 
Germany  of  mystic  philosophy  and  dreams." 


Early  Experiences  and  Utterances. 

This  earnest  worshipper  of  the  benignities  of 
nature  had  gone  through  sobering  experiences  of 
life  before  he  was  permanently  established  in  a 
Concord  home  ;  that  brother  Edward  — with  whom 
he  had  shared  an  overcoat  against  the  east  winds 


EARLY  EXPERIENCES.  145 


Emerson  at  His  Desk. 

of  Boston  —  had  died  on  a  health-trip  to  Porto 
Rico  (1834)  ;  the  young  wife  of  Emerson,  after 
less  than  three  years  of  wedded  life  (1829-32)  was 
dead  ;  so  was  the  brother  Charles  of  whom  he 


146       AMERICAN  LANDS   b*   LETTERS. 

speaks  so  glowingly  and  so  plaintively  in  the 
Carlyle  Correspondence.*  But  the  skies  color 
kindly  to  him ;  the  loitering  rivers  of  Concord 


Emerson's  House  at  Concord. 

brought  peace  ;  and  the  gentle  hill-slopes,  topped 
with  pine-trees,  gave  winning  shelter. 

It  was  in  1835  that  he   married   again  f   and 

"Vol.  i.,  p.  96. 

f  His  second  wife  was  Miss  Alida  Jackson,  sister  of  Dr. 
Jackson,  so  well  known  in  the  history  of  anaesthetics. 


HIS  HOME. 


147 


bought  that  plain,  square  house  *  on  a  fork  of  the 
village  streets,  which  was  ever  after  his  home  ; 
here  (he  says  in  a  letter  to  Carlyle)  : 

"I  occupy,  or  improve,  as  we  Yankees  say,  two  acres  only 
of  God's  earth,  on  which  is  my  house,  my  kitchen  garden, 
my  orchard  of  thirty  young 
trees,  my  empty  barn.  .  .  . 
Besides  my  house,  I  have, 
I  believe,  $22,000,  whose 
income  in  ordinary  years 
is  six  per  cent.  I  have  no 
other  tithe  except  the  in 
come  of  my  winter  lect 
ures,  which  was  last  winter 
$800  (1837-38).  .  .  . 
My  wife  Lillian  is  an  incar 
nation  of  Christianity ;  my 
mother  whitest,  mildest  of 
ladies,  whose  only  excep 
tion  to  her  universal  prefer 
ence  for  old  things  is — her 
son  —  my  boy,  a  piece  of  A  Corner  of  Emerson's  Study, 
love  and  sunshine.  .  . 

These  and  three  domestic  women  who  cook  and  sew  and  run 
for  us,  make  all  my  household.  Here  I  sit  and  read  and 


*The  original  building  was  virtually  destroyed  by  fire 
many  years  later,  but  rebuilt  by  his  friends  with  such 
scrupulous  fidelity  to  the  old  lines,  that  its  identity  seemed 
hardly  broken. 


148       AMERICAN  LANDS   &   LETTERS. 

write,  with  very  little  system,  and,  as  far  as  regards  composi 
tion,  with  the  most  fragmentary  result :  paragraphs  incom 
pressible,  each  sentence  an  infinitely  repellent  particle." 

I  have  ventured  to  italicize  these  declaratory 
phrases  by  which  he  honestly  sets  forth  a  good 
many  of  the  reigning  qualities  which  belonged  to 
his  address  On  the  American  Scholar,  and  that 
other  of  the  following  year  (1838)  which,  on  a 
certain  August  day  —  when  the  "  air  was  sweet 
with  the  breath  of  the  pine  and  the  new  hay " 
as  it  drifted  into  the  windows  of  Divinity  Hall 
in  Cambridge — broke  down  with  its  pellets  of 
thought  the  old  tranquillities  of  the  place. 

1  remember  well  how  the  echoes  of  that  talk  to 
Divinity  students  came  eddying  over  the  quiet 
latitude  of  New  Haven,  challenging  eager  young 
thinkers  to  a  strange  unrest,  and  inviting  the 
heartiest  maledictions  of  orthodox  teachers,  who 
would  consign  this  audacious  talker  to  quick  ob 
livion.*  There  was  not,  indeed,  in  the  address 

*  It  is  noteworthy  that  the  American  Biographical  Diction 
ary  of  Dr.  William  Allen  —  of  which  revised  editions  ap 
peared  in  1832  and  again  in  1857—  though  containing  notices 
of  Rev.  William  Emerson  and  other  ancestors  —  has  no  men 
tion  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 


THEOLOGIC  BELIEFS.  149 

special  reverence  for  those  who  had  denoted  the 
Infinite  power  as  being  of  a  Triune  nature  —  or 
of  a  single  nature  —  or  yet,  of  that  multiple  nature 
which  had  made  old  mythologies  rhythmic  with 
stories  of  groups  of  gods,  and  set  its  wood  nymphs 
(for  angels)  in  the  vales  where  fountains  burst 
forth  ;  not  reverent  indeed  of  any  one  of  the  old 
arithmetical  summings-up  of  Divinity.  Yet  there 
was  in  Emerson — in  that  day  and  always  —  a  deep- 
seated,  throbbing  recognition  of  a  Deity  —  imma 
nent,  wise,  merciful  —  flinging  all  abroad  blessings 
in  flowers  and  sunshine ;  and  there  was  in  this 
man,  too,  a  quiet,  earnest  seeking  after  those 
mystic  ties  of  relationship  which  would  make  His 
Fatherhood  clearer  and  nearer. 

We  have  no  right,  however,  to  make  strong 
declaratory  phrases  about  Emerson's  beliefs  ;  if  his 
own  utterances  do  not  suffice  no  words  can.  And 
in  this  connection  I  am  tempted  to  question  if 
that  delightful  biography  of  Emerson  (by  Dr. 
Holmes),  was  committed  to  the  properest  hands. 
A  lithe  and  witty  Montaigne  cannot  measure  for 
us  a  broad-shouldered  Plato  ;  he  is  too  much,  and 
too  buoyantly  himself  to  write  the  life  of  another. 


150       AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

Scarce  does  the  pleasant  doctor  begin  his  delight 
ful  task,  but  his  own  piquant  flavors,  queries,  and 
humor,  bubble  up  through  all  the  chinks  of  the 
story  and  make  us  forget  the  subject  —  in  the  nar 
rator.  A  man  who  is  so  used  to  drawing  attention 
to  his  own  end  of  the  table,  cannot  serve  safely 
as  a  pointer  at  some  one  else. 

Emerson  was  pure  in  thought  as  he  was  high  in 
thought,  and  his  thought  often  reached  spiritual 
altitudes  where  even  the  front  rank  of  preachers 
never  climbed  :  hence  there  was  lacking  that  high 
fellowship  which  might  have  strengthened  and 
stayed  him,  and  the  want  of  which  sometimes 
broke  over  him  with  a  blighting  sense  of  lone 
liness. 

The  Eev.  Henry  James  (father  of  the  better- 
known  H.  James,  Jr.)  talks  in  connection  with 
Emerson — about  his  "prim  and  bloodless  friend 
ship/'  But  James — with  the  warmth  of  the  "New 
Jerusalem"  in  him — craved  sympathetic  speech 
in  those  who  talked  theologies  with  him — a  most 
acute,  eager  man  with  transcendental  ranges  of 
thought.  The  estimate  agrees  with  that  of  many  ; 
few  could  get  near  Emerson ;  the  marchioness 


Emerson  in  1847. 


EMERSON  AT  "MASS."  153 

Ossoli  never  ;  Hawthorne  never  ;  James  never  ;  an 
implacable  acquiescence  closed  the  doors  between 
him  and  very  many  earnest  talkers.  He  says  in 
his  journal*  (1837):  "I  approach  some  Carlyle 
with  desire  and  joy "  .  .  .  but  it  ends  with 
.  .  .  "  only  so  feeble  and  remote  action  as  read 
ing  a  Mirabeau  or  a  Diderot  paper."  And  again, 
"  most  of  the  people  I  see  in  my  own  house,  I  see 
across  a  gulf." 

About  the  weather,  or  his  neighbors'  pigs,  or 
Thoreau's  bean-patch,  he  could  warm  ;  but  if  one 
dropped  such  topics  for  talk  about  the  soul,  or 
immortality,  he  froze  ;  on  such  trail  his  thought 
was  too  intense  for  any  "  battle-dore  and  shuttle 
cock  "  interchange  of  phrase. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  he  had 
not  his  saltations  of  belief  on  grave  as  well  as 
minor  subjects.  He  goes  on  one  occasion  to  High 
Mass  in  Baltimore  "with  much  content."  "  'Tis 
a  dear  old  church  f,"  he  says,  "the  Roman,  I 
mean,  and  to-day  I  detest  the  Unitarians,  and 
Martin  Luther,  and  all  the  Parliament  of  Bare- 

*P.  359,  Cabot. 

fin  letter  to  Miss  Fuller,  p.  471,  Cabot. 


154       AMERICAN  LANDS  6-   LETTERS. 

bones."  He  asks  Thoreau  to  teach  him  deft  use  of 
a  hoe  —  finds  soothing  in  it ;  but 

"  the  writer  shall  not  dig.  To  be  sure  he  may  work  in  the 
garden,  but  his  stay  there  must  be  measured,  not  by  the  needs 
of  the  garden,  but  of  the  study."  And  again  (to  Miss  Ful 
ler)  "  when  the  terrestrial  corn,  beets,  and  tomatoes  flourish 
the  celestial  archetypes  do  not."  [He  writes  to  his  brother 
William,]  "I  am  a  little  of  an  agrarian  at  heart  and  wish 
sometimes  that  I  had  a  smaller  house  or  else  that  it  sheltered 
more  persons."  * 

In  the  spirit  of  the  last  pronunciamento  he  sug 
gests  that  all  his  household  shall  eat  together. 
The  cook  declines  ;  but  the  maid  accepts  —  for 
one  day  —  after  which  she  declares  that  she  can 
not  allow  the  poor  cook  to  dine  alone.  Under 
such  experience  there  comes  to  the  front  that 
notable  project  of  Brook  Farm  (1840).  Will  he 
join  ?  He  queries  —  is  half  inclined  —  but  says 
(in  a  letter  to  Miss  Fuller)  "at  the  name  of  a 
society  all  my  repulsions  play,  all  my  quills  rise  and 
sharpen,  I  shall  very  shortly  go,  or  send  to  George 
Ripley  my  thoughts  on  the  subject."  f 

*  Cabot,  pp.  445-450.  f  Ibid.,  p.  434. 


BROOK-FARM  AND   CONCORD. 


155 


George  Ripley  and  Brook  Farm. 

The  liveliest  instigator  and  most  earnest  sup 
porter  of  the  Brook-Farm  experiment  was  the  Rev. 

George  Ripley,  a  native 
of  Greenfield,  in  the 
Connecticut  Valley, 
who  as  a  boy  had  lived 
for  a  time  at  that  Old 
Manse  where  we  found 


Emerson.  And  this  lad 

—  afterward  so  identi 
fied  with  the  transcen 
dental  lines  of  thought 

—  we     find,     oddly 
enough,  pleading  with 


156       AMERICAN  LANDS  &»   LETTERS. 

his  mother  (1819)  for  leave  to  complete  his  educa 
tion  at  Yale  instead  of  Harvard.  ' '  Languages/'  he 
says,  "are  better  taught  at  the  last,  but  solid 
branches,  science  and  the  like,*  as  well,  if  not 
better,  at  Yale,  where  temptations  incident  to  a 
college  life  are  fewer." 

His  wishes  are  over 
ruled,  however;  he  is  grad 
uated  (1823)  at  the  head  of 
his  class  ;  takes  his  Divin 
ity  lessons  ;  has  church  in 
Boston,  but  is  not  elo 
quent  ;  had  never  the  gift 
of  public  speaking  ;  ad 
mires  greatly  Charming 
and  Theodore  Parker ;  is 


George  Ripley. 


deeply  inoculated  by  the  famous  Divinity  Address 
of  Emerson,  and  abandons  the  pulpit  to  preach  and 
illustrate  the  gentle  ways  of  a  Christian  life  by  the 
Idyllic  peace  and  brotherhood  of  Brook  Farm. 

*  George  Ripley,  b.  1802;  d.  1880.  Associated  with 
Charles  Dana  in  editorship  of  Appleton's  Cydopcedia,  1857- 
63.  Literary  Critic  of  New  York  Tribune,  1849-80.  Life 
by  Octavius  Frothingham  :  American  Men  of  Letters. 


BROOK-FARM.  159 

It  was  not  an  over-attractive  place  —  nine  miles 
away  from  Boston  —  near  to  West  Roxbury,  and 
not  far  from  that  great  lazy  looplet  which,  the  me 
andering  Eiver  Charles  makes,  near  to  Dedham  — 
whence  it  flows  northwesterly  past  Upper  and 
Lower  Falls  and  round  Mount  Auburn  into  the 
placid  reaches  that  Longfellow  mirrored  in  his 
verse,  and  then  other  and  lower  placid  reaches 
which  Holmes  saw  from  his  Boston  windows,  and 
gloried  in.  The  farm  was  not  fertile  ;  it  did  not 
promise  large  practical  results ;  there  was  no 
water-power  in  the  little  branchlet  of  the  Charles 
(in  whose  eddies  poor  Zenobia  may  have  met  her 
death).  But  there  was  contagious  cheer  and  en 
thusiasm  in  the  leader,  whose  kindly  eyes  had 
twinkled  with  large  hopes  at  the  gatherings  of  the 
Transcendental  Club  —  who  believed  that  "the 
hag-like  scholastic  theology  of  old  had  given  up 
the  ghost "  —  and  who  wrote  proudly  to  inquirers 
about  the  new  Roxbury  scheme — 

"  We  worship  only  reality,  we  are  striving  to  establish  a 
mode  of  life  which  shall  combine  the  enchantments  of  poetry 
with  the  facts  of  daily  experience."  [And  again,  later:] 
"  The  path  of  transition  is  always  covered  with  thorns  and 
marked  with  the  bleeding  feet  of  the  faithful.  .  .  .  We 


160       AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

must  drink  the  water  of  Marah,  that  others  may  feed  on  the 
grapes  of  Eshcol.  .  .  .  We  are  eclectics  and  learners ; 
but  day  by  day  increases  our  faith  and  joy  in  the  principle  of 
combined  industry,  and  of  bearing  each  other's  burdens,  in 
stead  of  seeking  every  man  his  own. "  * 

These  were  brave  words,  and  believed  by  those 
brave  leaders  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Kipley  in  every  fibre 
of  their  being  ;  though  the  "  bleeding  feet  "  must 
have  attached  to  some  period  when  funds  were  low 
or  potatoes  rotting  in  the  ground  ;  for  with  all  the 
joyousness  and  charm  (to  which  old  residents 
testify)  and  the  music,  and  the  dances  at  the  Eyrie 
and  the  pretty  tunics,  and  such  songs  as  "  Kath 
leen  Mavourneen "  from  the  jubilant  voice  of 
young  George  Curtis,  and  an  old-fashioned  farmer 
for  teamster — there  was  not  that  close  business  sys 
tem  which  could  promise  large  economic  results,  f 

There  was  a  merging  of  simpler  aims  —  as  years 

*  Frothingham,  Life,  pp.  14G-48. 

f  The  original  capital  of  the  Brook  Farm  Institute  of  Agri 
culture  and  Education,  was  $12,000  (in  shares  of  $500), 
of  which  George  Ripley  took  three  :  Mrs.  Ripley  and  Miss 
Ripley  five  :  Hawthorne  two ;  Charles  A.  Dana  three.  The 
association  guaranteed  to  each  shareholder  five  per  cent  — 
which  was  made  good  until  disaster  befel  (1847).  Vid.  Froth 
ingham  and  Brook  Farm  Memoirs  by  Codman. 


PHALANSTERY  BURNED.  161 

went  by  —  in  more  ambitious  Fourierite  projects  : 
the  building  of  a  great  Phalanstery  —  in  the 
smoke  and  flame  of  whose  burning  (1847)  this 
grand  philanthropic  scheme  went  down.  It  was  a 
great  grief  for  the  founder.  The  Harbinger,  a 
journal  which  had  budded  under  the  West  Rox- 
bury  nursing,  was  kept  alive  for  a  few  years  more 
—  in  Flushing,  or  New  York  —  whither  the  Arc/ion 
(Ripley)  went :  another  and  quieter  career  opened 
for  him  —  of  which  traces  are  to  be  found  in  the 
critical  columns  of  the  Tribune :  his  widowed  years 
were  brightened  by  second  marriage  rites ;  and  to 
the  last  there  was  a  merry  twinkle  under  the 
gold-bowed  spectacles  of  Dr.  Ripley.  For  all 
this  I  think  the  Brook-Farm  failure  left  a  sore 
place  in  his  heart.  Later  reform  projects  seemed 
to  him,  I  feel  sure,  artificial,  dishonest  —  as  com 
pared  with  that  first  out-put  of  the  seeds  of  justice 
and  brotherhood  ;  always  (for  him)  there  was  a 
rhythmic  beat  of  celestial  music  in  that  far  away 
choir  of  workers  and  singers  —  brought  together 
by  his  agency,  bonded  by  his  affectionate  sereni 
ties,  and  put  upon  the  road  —  amidst  rural  beati 
tudes  —  toward  the  Delectable  Mountains  and  the 


162       AMERICAN  LANDS  fr   LETTERS. 

heights  of  Beulah.  I  don't  think  such  retrospects 
of  heavenly  tone  and  tune  ever  took  the  distin 
guished  editor  of  the  Sun  back  to  the  courts  of 
the  "  Hive"  or  to  the  shops  of  West  Koxbury. 

If  an  honest  pure-thoughted  man  ever  lived 
'twas  George  Kipley ;  and  he  carried  a  beautiful 
zeal  and  earnestness  into  that  Brook-Farm  under 
taking.  Much  as  he  enjoyed  the  genius  of  Haw 
thorne,  I  do  not  think  he  had  kindly  thought  of  the 
BlitJiedale  Romance:  not  indeed  blind  to  its 
extraordinary  merit,  or  counting  it  an  ugly  pict 
ure  —  but  as  one  throwing  a  quasi  pagan  glamour 
over  a  holy  undertaking.  I  remember  once  ask 
ing  him  —  in  that  dingy  Tribune  office  —  after 
the  religious  tendencies,  or  utterances  of  Haw 
thorne  in  those  Brook-Farm  days  :  he  said,  bluntly 
— "  there  were  none  —  no  reverence  in  his  nat 
ure."  Very  likely  he  would  have  hesitated  before 
putting  such  critical  opinion  into  cold  type.  But 
I  could  see  that  old  memories  were  seething  in  his 
thought,  of  that  large  humane  purpose  into  which 
he  had  put  his  heart  and  his  hope,  and  whereon 
the  great  Romancer  had  put  only  his  artist  eye. 


D  WIGHT  AND  DANA. 


165 


Other  Brook-Farmers  and  Sympathizers. 

There  were  others  whose  hearts  were  in  it ; 
among  them  that  musically  accented  man,  John 
S.  Dwight,  whose  Journal  of  Music  was  a  legacy 


John  S.  Dwight. 

for  the  nation.  Charles  Dana,  too  —  not  long 
from  his  two  years  at  Harvard  —  put  as  much 
heartiness  as  belonged  to  any  work  of  his,  into  his 


166      AMERICAN  LANDS  &  LETTERS. 


foregatherings  there  with  his  pupils  in  Greek  or 
German  ;  with  a  quick  eye  for  trees  even  then,  and 
prompt  and  business-like  at  twenty-three  —  as  al 

ways  afterward.  The 
tall  W.  H.  Channing 
—  son  of  Dr.  \Yalter, 
and  nephew  of  the 
great  expositor  of 
Unitarianism  —  pictu 
resque  with  his  long, 
curling  hair  and  gra 
cious  smile,  had  his 
kindly  admonitions 
and  encouragements 
to  give.  And  Haw 
thorne  —  if  not  hearty 
in  the  regenerative 
work  —  put  a  swift  and 
firm  hand  into  the  farm 
labors,  what  short  time 
Wm.  Henry  Channing.  he  stayed  ;  but  it  is 

Front  a  photograph  loaned  by  Thomas 


to  imagine  his  un 
rest  and  lack  of  assimilation  on  those  evenings  at 
the  "  Hive,"  when  the  younger  members,  in  gay 


THEODORE  PARKER.  169 

tunics,  organized  recreative  dances ;  or  when  the 
poetic  Cranch*  entertained  the  assemblage  with 
his  wonderful  imitations  of  beast  and  bird  notes ; 
or  when  the  boyish  Curtis  (scarce  turned  of  seven 
teen)  lifted  up  his  melodious  voice  to  some  old 
song  of  love  or  of  pathos. 

Mrs.  L.  Maria  Child,  f  kindly  hearted,  and 
author  of  much  pleasant  reading,  sometimes  lent 
her  benign  presence  —  though  comparing  unfavor 
ably  the  peaceful  ruralities  and  voices  of  Brook 
Farm  with  the  scalding  words  of  the  Emancipator, 
or  of  her  own  Anti- Slavery  Standard. 

Two  Doctors. 

Theodore  Parker  \  was  another  well  wisher,  who 
came  over  from  time  to  time,  across  lots,  from  his 
near  parish  in  West  Roxbury,  and  who  would  have 

*  Christopher  P.  Cranch,  b.  1813 ;  d.  1892.  Well  known 
for  his  various  gifts  —  as  Landscapist,  Poet,  and  Virgilian 
translator. 

fMrs.  L.  Maria  Child  (nee  Francis),  b.  1802  ;  d.  1880. 
The  Rebels,  1822  ;  Looking  Toward  Sunset,  1864. 

\  Theodore  Parker,  b.  1810  ;  d.  1860.  Discourse  on  Mat 
ters  Pertaining  to  Religion,  1842.  His  Complete  Works  (12 
vols.  8vo)  edited  by  Cobbe,  1863-65.  Life  by  Frothingham. 


i;o       AMERICAN  LANDS  &*   LETTERS. 


Mrs.  Lydia  Maria  Child. 

put  more  of  bounce  and  of  fight  into  these  regen 
erators  of  society  —  had  he  been  made  director. 
He  was  a  man  of  force ;  had  worked  his  way 


THEODORE  PARKER.  171 

through  college ;  held  a  brain  that  loved  to 
grapple  with  difficulties  —  whether  lingual  or 
logical.  He  also  had  a  tremendous  balance  of 
common  sense ;  his  Dietary  or  Canons  of  Self- 
Discipline  shows  this. 

He  was  tabooed  by  his  fellows  in  the  Church 
who  kept  within  the  straits  —  laid  down  by  An 
drews  Norton  and  others  —  and  felt  it  grievous 
ly,  but  not  repiningly.  He  always  liked  a  good 
battle ;  would  have  fellowshipped  admirably  with 
those  pulpit  adherents  of  Cromwell  who  kept  their 
maces  or  pistols  within  arm's  reach  —  even  in  the 
pulpit.  The  elite  of  society  were  always  shy  of 
him.  He  was  not  amenable  to  high  social  law. 
Edward  Everett  or  Prescott,  or  other  such  would 
have  been  shocked  in  all  their  genteelest  fibres  at 
the  spectacle  of  a  man  in  careless  or  disordered 
toilette  —  without  surplice  or  other  appliances,  or 
air  of  stately  decorum — thundering  from  the  plat 
form  of  a  Music  Hall,  about  the  Eternal  Father  — 
as  if  he  knew  him  !  Not  all  the  beneficence  and 
charity  that  shone  in  his  life  could  blind  them  to 
his  democratic  commonness  of  talk.  From  first  to 
last  the  cultivated  and  refined  of  Boston  held 


172        AMERICAN  LANDS  &•   LETTERS. 

themselves  aloof.  They  might  admire,  but  they 
resented  his  lack  of  respect  for  proper  formulas  of 
conduct ;  and  to  their  ears  his  weightiest  thunders 
of  damnation  —  whether  of  a  Mexican  war  or  a 
fugitive  slave  law  —  were  vulgar  thunders,  and 
ugly  brimstone  odors  hung  nauseously  about  the 
theologic  or  the  humanitarian  lightnings  of  the 
Odeon,  or  of  Music  Hall.  Yet  he  had  fathomed 
all  social  depths  in  all  ranges  of  life.  In  real 
friendliness  —  of  intention  or  of  speech,  he  could 
give  points  to  kings  and  outdo  them.  As  for  his 
intellectual  resources,  they  were  prodigious  and 
imposing  ;  but  they  had  serious  flaws.  In  what 
touched  humanitarian  questions,  he  reasoned  — 
with  his  heart ;  his  tenderness  over  and  over,  up 
set  his  logic  ;  his  tears  put  a  mist  into  his  pleas 
even  at  the  Court  of  Heaven.  Again,  his  sharp, 
keen  memory  for  particular  facts  made  him  neg 
lectful  of  accepted  and  accredited  records  ;  he  had 
exaggerated  trust  in  himself,  in  his  instincts,  his 
memory,  his  purposes.  He  looked  down  on  most 
men  ;  he  had  his  slaps  for  Paul  the  Apostle  — •  as 
for  an  over-confident  boy  ;  he  looked  up  to  none 
—  save  God. 


Theodore  Parker. 


THEODORE  PARKER.  175 

44 1  should  laugh  outright  "  [he  says  in  his  journal],  4t  to 
catch  myself  weeping  because  the  Boston  clergy  would  not 
exchange  with  me !  "  [And  again,  in  a  sermon  of  May  19, 
1841 :]  "  Alas  for  the  man  who  consents  to  think  one  thing 
in  his  closet  and  preach  another  in  his  pulpit !  .  .  .  Over 
his  study  and  over  his  pulpit,  might  be  writ  Emptiness." 

He  was  condemned  and  scouted  by  most  conven 
tional  preachers  ;  even  Channing  looked  upon  him 
askance ;  Bartol  doubted,  but  befriended  him ; 
many  shied  away,  murmuring  "  Infidel  ! "  Hard 
words  he  often  dealt  back  ;  a  fighter  full  of  zeal 
and  earnestness  ;  eyes  wide  open  —  though  peer 
ing  through  great  round  glasses  ;  soul  wide  open, 
too  —  but  stormy.  He  thought,  may  be,  more 
largely  of  his  endowments  and  capacity  than  the 
world  has  thought ;  holding  his  talent  —  not  in 
a  napkin  —  but  astir  for  God's  and  man's  ser 
vice.  So  he  fared  through  a  short,  but  very  full 
life  —  not  without  angry  words  and  tempests  of 
pitying  tears  and  bitter  maledictions  of  wrong 
doers  —  dying  at  last  as  a  child  dies,  in  Florence 
(1860). 

Another  extraordinary  but  older  New  England 
Doctor  of  Divinity,  who  may  sometimes  have 
brought  his  penetrative  and  not  unsympathetic 


176       AMERICAN  LANDS  fr   LETTERS. 

look  upon  the  Brook-Farm  company,  was  Orestes 
Brownson.*  He  was  a  Vermonter,  whose  father 
died  in  his  childhood,  and  he  was  reared  under 
the  severe  Puritan  discipline  of  elderly  relatives. 
After  a  youth  of  struggle,  he  became  preacher  — 
first  of  Presbyterian  faith  (1822),  and  later  sway 
ing  into  Universalism  (1825)  ;  again  he  was  an  ad 
mirer  of  Robert  Owen,  and  instrumental  in  form 
ing  a  "  AVorkingman's  Party"  (1828)  ;  four  years 
thereafter  he  was  a  good  Unitarian  and  in  1844  (if 
not  earlier)  protested  against  Protestantism,  and 
entered  the  Romish  Church.  But  even  here  he 
lacked  due  obeisance  to  those  in  authority,  and 
became  an  unruly  member.  Throughout,  he  was 
active  in  political  discussion  ;  oftenest  radical,  but 
at  times  severely  conservative  ;  writing  sharply 
and  strongly  in  journals  of  his  own  establish 
ment;  always  trenchant  in  speech  —  always  va 
grant  in  thought  :  a  strong,  self-willed,  and  curi 
ous  Vermonter  ! 

*  Orestes  A.  Brownson,  b.  1803  :  d.  1876.  In  1840  pub 
lished  Charles  Elwood,  or  the  Infidel  Converted.  Essays  and 
Reviews,  1852 ;  complete  works  number  19  vols. 


MARGARET  FULLER. 


177 


Fuller- Ossoli. 

Another  interested  looker-on,  and  sometime 
participant  in  the  entertainments  of  Brook  Farm, 
was  Miss  Margaret  Fuller,*  daughter  of  a  shrewd, 
headstrong,  Jeft'ersonian 
member  of  Congress 
(1817-35)  and  of  a  gentle 
mother  who  loved  flowers ; 
Margaret  pined  for  some 
thing  more  than  flowers. 
At  six  she  studied  Latin, 
at  fifteen  her  tasks  were 
in  French,  music,  mental 
philosophy, — with  two 
hours  a  day  to  Italian  ; 
other  stray  hours  were  given  to  Diary-writing, 
and  to  "  compositions,"  which  were  full  of  pre 
cocities  of  form  and  thought.  The  father  meant 

*  Sarah  Margaret  Fuller  (Marchioness  Ossoli),  b.  1810; 
d.  1850 ;  edited  The  Dial,  1840-42 ;  Woman  in  the  Nineteenth 
Century,  1845.  There  is  a  very  good  and  sympathetic 
life  of  her  by  T.  W.  Higginson  —  but  not  without  a  certain 
literary  arrogance  by  which  he  sublimates  his  otherwise 
pleasant  essays. 


Margaret  Fuller. 


i;8       AMERICAN  LANDS   &  LETTERS. 

her  to  shine,  and  schooled  her  captiously  —  even 
to  the  lacing  of  her  corsets,,  and  the  colors  of 
her  robes.  Over  and  over,  her  own  will  ran  against 
that  exacting  father's  will ;  yet  she  grew  like  him 

—  far  more  than  like  the  gentle,  indulgent,  extin 
guished  mother.     With  every-day  sight  of  such 
extinction  under  a  dominating  master's  hand,  'tis 
not  strange  that  her  own  masculine  power  should 
by  and  by  strike  stout  blows  for  the  breaking  of 
the  bonds  which  held  women  in  durance. 

She  came  early  under  the  thrall  of  Emerson's 
genius  ;  but  there  was  no  electrical  concert  of 
forces  between  them  ;  "  the  room  enlarges  when 
she  comes,"  he  says;  and  the  horizon  widens  under 
that  billowy  talk  which  fascinated  so  many  ;  but 

—  at  her  going  —  a  large  home  content  and  relief 
always  came  to  him,  with  no  yearnings  for  a  con 
tinuance   of  the    spell.     "  Such   a  predetermina 
tion/'  says  Carlyle,*  "  to  eat  this  big  universe  as 
her  oyster    ...     I  have  not  before   seen    in 
any  human  soul." 

In   those    days   of    her   occasional    coming    to 

*  Correspondence  of  Carlyle  and  Emerson,  vol.  ii.,  p.  212. 


MARGARET  FULLER.  179 

Brook  Farm,  she  was  editing,  or  had  edited,  The 
Dial  —  that  recognized  mirror  of  transcendental 
thought,  of  which  the  prospectus  had  been  writ 
ten  by  George  Kipley.  Therefore  due  reverence 
sat  upon  the  young  auditors  of  West  Eoxbury, 
when  this  Sybil  —  of  the  curled  locks,  high  fore- 


Margaret  Fuller  Cottage. 

head,  half-closed  eyes,  over-laced  corsage  and 
beautiful  arms — with  prehensile  grip  of  taper  fin 
gers —  launched  away  into  her  smooth-flowing, 
rapturous  but  immethodical  talks.  From  TJie 
Dial  —  given  over  to  the  editing  of  Emerson  — 
she  went  to  the  New  York  Tribune,  where  G-reeley 
was  conquered  by  her  graces,  and  her  wide-ranging 


i8o       AMERICAN  LANDS  <Sr»    LETTERS. 

humanities.  For  one  or  two  years  she  conducted 
the  critical  department  of  that  journal  with  spirit 
and  cleverness  :  but  not  always  with  equanimity, 
or  clear  foresight.  She  never  ceased  to  belabor 
Longfellow,  in  hystericky  fashion,  for  his  alle 
giance  to  British  traditions  and  for  setting  the 
nightingale  to  singing  where  the  Bob-o'-Lincoln 
should  have  trilled  his  roundelay  ;  she  foretold 
disaster  and  wreck  for  the  literary  reputation  of 
the  author  of  Parson  Wilbur  (and  Mr.  Lowell 
repaid  her  in  kind). 

On  her  voyage  to  Europe  (1846)  she  was 
equipped  with  exuberant  letters  from  Emerson,  to 
Carlyle,  Landor,  and  others;  nor  was  she  ever 
abashed,  nor  did  she  ever  count  herself  "  second," 
in  any  interview  with  the  cleverest. 

Established  for  awhile  in  Italy,  she  encounters 
there  Mrs.  Browning,  who  (in  one  of  her  recently 
published  letters)  speaks  of  her  as  a  very  agreeable 
and  noticeable  person  —  more  enjoyable  than  her 
books.  It  was  at  Rome,  too  —  in  the  winter  of 
1846-47  that  the  love  experience  befell  Miss 
Fuller,  which  transmuted  the  cavilling,  eloquent, 
self-contained  conversationalist  into  the  impas- 


THE   OSSOLI  MARRIAGE.  181 

sioned,  warm-hearted,  self-denying  wife  of  the 
Marquis  Ossoli.  This  young  Koman  —  many 
years  her  junior,  and  attached  in  some  way  to  the 
papal  service  —  was  an  easy-going,  presentable, 
amiable  man,  not  up 
to  the  level  of  Miss 
Fuller's  ranges  of 
philosophic  talk. 
"Wonderful,"  wrote 


Brook  Farm,  from  the  Margaret  Fuller  Cottage. 

Mrs.     Browning,     "  how    such     marriages    come 
about  ! " 

But  it  did  come  about,  and  had  swift  and  fate 
ful  issues  —  a  romance  from  start  to  close.  This 
rarely  instructed,  observant,  masculine -minded 


182       AMERICAN  LANDS  &>   LETTERS. 

woman  —  with  the  half-closed,  languorous  eyes  — 
had,  on  some  day  of  fete,  lost  herself  in  the  aisles 
of  St.  Peter's,  or  in  the  corridors  of  the  Vatican. 
In  her  bewilderment  she  had  been  offered  guid 
ance  and  attendance  home  by  a  gracious  young 
official ;  visitations  followed,  and  a  beguiling  ac 
quaintance,  with  all  the  blandishments  that  be 
long  to  the  communings  of  Roman  doves  upon 
the  lip  of  a  classic  vase. 

Then  follows  a  secret  marriage  (1847)  —  family 
and  political  reasons  forcing  this  policy  upon  the 
young  marquis  —  who  has  little  revenue  and  the 
new  marchioness  still  less  ;  but  there  is  bravery  in 
her,  and  the  old  spirit  of  resolve  ;  a  humble  har 
bor  for  mother  and  child  (September,  1848)  is 
found  in  the  little  mountain  town  of  Eieti  — 
while  the  marquis  feels  his  way  doubtfully,  amid 
the  distractions  that  belong  to  Roman  affairs, 
while  the  shadow  of  a  French  army  of  occupa 
tion  is  darkening  the  air  ;  but  Marquisates  were 
at  a  discount  in  those  days  of  Revolution  and  of 
Mazzinis. 

The  rest  of  the  story  is  short.  The  new  mother 
—  who  had  held  coteries  of  bright  young  people 


THE   OSSOLI  MARRIAGE.  183 

enraptured  with  her  brilliant  talk  —  gathers  up 
her  little  properties,  of  relics,  of  "  heartVease,"  of 
classic  memories,,  and  sets  sail,  with  husband  and 
child,  for  home.  It  was  summer  weather,  but 
July  has  its  storms ;  and  in  one  of  them,  the  ship 
(or  brig)  upon  which  the  marchioness  was  a  pas 
senger,  was  driven  upon  the  sands  off  Fire  Island  ; 
father  and  mother  were  lost ;  the  babe  was  picked 
up  —  dead,  upon  the  shore.  This  was  on  July  17, 
1850.  In  1852  was  published  the  BlithedaU  Ro 
mance  (presumably  written  in  1851)  on  the  latter 
pages  of  which  appears  that  startling  picture  of 
"the  marble  image  of  a  death  agony.  .  .  .  Her 
wet  garments  swathing  limbs  of  terrible  inflexibil 
ity."  I  have  often  wondered  if  some  newspaper 
reporter's  cold  -  blooded  details  about  the  find 
ings  from  the  wreck  —  upon  that  July  day  — 
may  not  possibly  have  worked  upon  the  imagina 
tion  of  Hawthorne  (who  knew  the  marchioness 
at  the  "  Farm  "  and  other- wheres)  and  so  given 
some  of  its  blotches  of  color  to  the  corpse  of  the 
drowned  Zenobia. 


1 84       AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 


Alcott  of  the  Orphic  Sayings. 

Among  the  helpers  toward  giving  a  proper 
transcendental  tone  to  that  quarterly,  The  Dial,  of 
which  I  have  spoken  in  connection  with  Margaret 
Fuller,  was  a  man  —  almost  of  an  earlier  genera 
tion  —  who  sometimes  showed  his  prophet  face  at 
Brook  Farm,  and  whose  clever  daughter,  Miss 
Louisa  Alcott,  has  been  one  of  the  most  welcome 
purveyors  of  story-delights  for  that  generation  of 
children  which  grew  up  during  our  war  of  secession. 
Of  course,  I  allude  to  Bronson  Alcott,*  of  whom 
Emerson  said,  in  letters  (perhaps  meant  to  be 
private)  —  "a  most  extraordinary  man,  and  the 
highest  genius  of  his  time  ;  "  and  again  —  "  more 
of  the  God-like  than  in  any  man  I  have  seen."  f 

In  these  opinions,  'tis  plain,  Carlyle  did  not 
share ;  he  writes  to  Emerson  (July,  1842)  "  Alcott 
came  .  .  .  bent  on  saving  the  world  by  a  re 
turn  to  acorns  and  the  golden  age  ...  a  kind 

*  Amos  Bronson  Alcott,  b.  1799;  d.  1888.      Concord  Days, 
1872.      Orphic  Sayings,  1841-42. 
f  Cabot's  Emerson,  vol.  i.,  p.  279. 


A.  Bronson  Alcott. 


BRONSON  ALCOTT.  187 

of  Venerable  Don  Quixote,  whom  nobody  can  even 
laugh  at  without  loving." 

This  reforming  Quixote,  who  shared  the  advanced 
views  of  most  radicals  of  his  day,  was  born  in  a 
small  country  town  of  Connecticut,  on  the  edge  of 
two  centuries  (1799).  From  his  father  he  in 
herited  mechanical  aptitudes  and  little  else.  His 
schooling  was  limited  and  scrimpy ;  and  in  extreme 
youth  he  was  started  with  a  little  budget  of  books 
and  trinkets  upon  a  peddling  expedition  through 
Southern  Virginia.  Mrs.  (Hawthorne)  Lathrop  in 
recent  Keminiscences  of  her  father,  tells  pleasantly 
how  Mr.  Alcott,  in  his  later  years,  used  to  go  over, 
with  gusto,  stories  of  his  early  Virginian  travels. 
He  ingratiated  himself  with  hospitable  planters 
and  traders  —  beginning  then  and  there  his  rhap 
sodies  of  edifying  talk;  but  making  few  sales  and 
bad  ones  (as  he  continued  to  do  all  his  life).  In 
deed  his  aptness  for  empty  pockets  was  quite  ex 
ceptional. 

He  had,  however,  a  quick  sense  of  what  was 
lacking  in  school  methods,  and  sought  earnestly  to 
mend  them — believing  in  the  tongue  as  a  great 
educational  agent,  and  carrying  young  folks  into 


1 88       AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LE'ITERS. 

the  arcana  of  knowledge  on  the  buoyancy  of  his 
engaging  and  redundant  talks.  Miss  Fuller  had 
been  sometime  a  reverent  pupil  of  his  ;  and  I 
daresay  caught  from  his  flowing,  discursive  meth 
ods,  a  stimulant  to  the  more  brilliant  ore-ro- 
tundo  discursions  of  her  own. 

The  Orphic  Sayings,  which  he  contributed  to 
The  Dial  (under  Miss  Fuller's  administration)  are 
perhaps  most  characteristic  of  him  ;  he  was  rather 
mystical  than  profound;  he  delighted  in  forays 
into  regions  of  the  unknown  —  with  whatever  ten 
tative  or  timid  steps  —  and  although  he  may  have 
put  a  vehemence  into  his  expression  that  would 
seem  to  imply  that  he  was  drifting  in  deep  waters 
—  one  cannot  forbear  the  conviction  that 't  would 
be  easy  for  this  man  of  the  explorative  mentalities 
to  touch  ground  with  his  feet  (if  he  chose)  —  in 
all  the  bays  where  he  swims. 

Concord  Again. 

Emerson  would  naturally  have  given  cordial 
welcome  to  Alcott  when  he  came  to  plant  himself 
permanently  at  the  "  Hillside  "  in  Concord.  The 


ex 

I 

Ic 

CU 

*o 


EMERSON  AGAIN.  191 

sobrieties  and  the  large  dignities  in  which  the 
Orphic  philosopher  wrapped  even  his  shallowest 
speech  and  his  action,  could  not  be  otherwise  than 
agreeable  to  the  man  who  had  a  horror  of  noise 
and  bounce.  "  The  person  who  screams  "  — Emer 
son  tells  us  in  his  talk  on  Manners  —  "or  who 
uses  the  superlative  degree,  or  converses  with  heat, 
puts  whole  drawing-rooms  to  flight." 

For  a  little  time  there  was  a  concerted  scheme 
that  Alcott  should  become  and  remain  an  inmate 
of  the  Emerson  house  :  but  after  some  trial  this 
home  concert  joggled  away  from  good  bearings : 
sovereignty  does  not  easily  lend  itself  to  twinship. 
Another  sort  of  home  copartnery  subsisted  for 
awhile  with  that  youthful,  keen-sighted  Thoreau 
(of  whom  we  shall  have  by  and  by  more  to  say)  who 
volunteered  instruction  of  the  philosopher  in 
gardening  arts  —  to  the  practical  side  of  which 
arts  the  editor  of  The  Dial  did  not  take  very 
aptly  ;  indeed  some  pleasant  observer  tells  us  how 
the  young  son  of  the  house  was  wont  to  cry  out 
warningly  —  "  Don't  dig  your  legs,  Father  ! " 

But  for  Emerson  there  was  always  large  and 
fruitful  companionship  with  the  pines  that 


192       AMERICAN  LANDS  &*   LETTERS. 

fringed  Concord  hills  and  that  sighed  over  the 
shingles  of  his  own  roof-tree  —  with  the  "  fresh 
Rhodora  "  whose  "  purple  petals  "  he  has  made  a 
"  rival  of  the  rose"  —  with  all  the  towns-people, 
too,  taught  and  untaught,,  for  whom  he  has  way 
side  chat  and  pleasant  benignities  of  question  and 
of  consolation  —  finding  his  way  by  quaint,  fa 
miliar,  homely  phrases  to  their  hearts'  desires  and 
small  ambitions  —  not  feeding  his  wisdom  by 
any  aloofness,  but  mixing  with  the  towns-folk, 
and  measuring  minds  with  them,  and  so  grow 
ing  into  the  calm  meditative  philosophy  of  his 
"  Musket-aquid," 

u  And,  chief est  prize,  found  I  true  liberty 
In  the  glad  home  plain-dealing  nature  gave. 
The  polite  found  me  impolite ;  the  great 
Could  mortify  me,  but  in  vain ;  for  still 
I  am  a  willow  of  the  wilderness, 
Loving  the  wind  that  bent  me.     All  my  hurts 
My  garden  spade  can  heal.     A  woodland  walk, 
A  quest  of  river-grapes,  a  mocking  thrush, 
A  wild  rose,  or  rock  loving  columbine, 
Salve  my  worst  wounds." 

And  this  holy  unction  of  the  quiet  New  Eng 
land  village  life,  Emerson  the  teacher  and  the  lay- 


EMERSON  AS   VILLAGER.  193 

preacher  carries  with  him  wherever  lie  goes  ;  —  to 
crowded  halls  iu  cities — to  the  poetry-pages  of  The 
Dial  —  to  great  festive  celebrations —  to  Parker's 
supper-house  in  Boston  and  to  the  "  town-meet 
ings  "  of  Concord.  Nor  can  I  believe  (with  a  re 
cent  clever  essayist)*  that  he  carries  only  intel 
lectual  chill  with  him,  or  distrust  of  the  "  emo 
tions."  It  appears  to  me  that  he  fore-answered,  in 
his  own  mystic,  deep-reaching  ways,  such  charges 
(old  as  well  as  new)  in  his  chapter  on  "Love"  ; 
and  that  there  was  a  fulness  of  eager  heart-beat  be 
hind  the  pen  which  wrote  of  his  boy  (for  whom 
the  "Threnody"  was  made)  that  he  was  "a  piece 
of  love  and  sunshine  "  ;  I  remember  too  that  he 
opened  his  screed  on  "  Friendship  "  (far  warmer 
than  Bacon's)  with  the  dictum  —  "we  have  a 
great  deal  more  kindness  than  is  ever  spoken." 

I  have  talked  of  The  Dial —  which  carries  as  re 
cord  of  the  passing  times,  some  of  his  best  poems 
—  "  Wood  Notes "  among  them  ;  and  I  have 
spoken  of  Brook  Farm  and  its  Idyllic  print  of  new 
foot-marks  on  the  Roxbury  hillside  —  both  these 

*  John  Jay  Chapman  in  Emerson  and  other  Essays^  p. 
83.  Seribuer,  1898. 


194       AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

ventures  of  new  thinkers  and  planners  seeming  to 
have  gained  much  of  their  purpose  and  trend 
from  the  teachings  of  Emerson,  who  was  anchored 
in  the  repose  of  Concord  ;  noisy  antagonism,  and 
obstreperous  advocacy  of  even  a  good  cause  were 
never  in  his  way.  "  If  I  work  honestly  and  steadily 
in  my  own  garden  I  am  making  protest  against 
slave-labor."  The  impatient  temperance  zealots 
cannot  bring  him  to  the  breakage  of  all  the  home 
demijohns.*  Even  Garrison  cannot  win  him  to 
fiery  outbursts  in  The  Emancipator;  'tis  only 
much  later  —  when  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  brings 
its  trail  of  open  cruelties  and  of  moral  shivers  — 
that  Emerson's  humane  spirit  breaks  out  into 
vehement,  scorching  protest. 

Yet  that  quiet  lapse  of  life  beside  the  slowly 
flowing  rivers  of  Concord  is  not  wholly  unbroken. 
Sorrows  cast  shadows  over  those  peaceful  mead 
ows  ;  there  is  a  second  visit  to  England  (1847) 


*  But  let  not  this  be  understood  as  questioning  in  the 
slightest  degree  his  own  faith,  and  practise  of  temperate 
ways  of  life  :  but  only  as  Emerson's  protest  against  the  val 
idity  of  bolts  and  bars  and  pledges,  as  compared  with  the 
guiding  dictates  of  an  awakened,  individual  conscience. 


ENGLISH  TRAITS.  195 

out  of  which,  and  the  lectures  there,  came  the 
book  we  know  as  .Representative  Men,  and  the  later 
one  of  English  Traits.  The  biting  and  searching 
qualities  of  this  latter,  all  people  who  read  good 
books  know  of.  There  is  honest  praise  in  it,  and 
free  speech.  He  misdoubts  mitres  indeed  —  as  he 
smiles  over  his  glass  at  my  Lord  Bishop's  table  ; 
but  he  hears  under  all  the  fustian  (and  it  makes 
him  proud)  the  doughty  step  of  the  English  Yeo 
man  and  the  whizzing  of  the  cloth-yard  shaft, 
which  only  that  yeoman's  strong  arm  could  send 
koine.  To  be  critical  of  the  follies  and  the  fallings- 
short  of  the  mother-country,  and  yet  to  admire 
and  take  pride  in  her  stalwart  virtues — this  could 
be  done,  and  was  done  by  this  quiet,  meditative 
man  —  measuring  his  paces  by  the  lapse  of  the 
slow-going  Concord  rivers  —  in  a  way  that  kindled 
an  enthusiasm  of  full  belief. 

He  was  always  a  student,  yet  most  recondite  in 
his  own  processes  of  thought ;  not  massing  ma 
terial  —  for  the  sake  of  mass ;  keenly  alive  to 
the  brilliance  that  threw  light  on  points  at  issue  ; 
other  brilliancies  counted  only  as  feux  d' artifice. 
Always  a  good  "hop  and  skip  "  reader  —  catching 


196       AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

bright  flashes  of  other  men's  utterance  —  for  dec 
orative  or  suggestive  usage  ;  but  never  vitalizing 
his  own  speech  with  another's  thoughts  ;  rather 
cherishing,  or  even  memorizing  them  as  stimulants 
to  new  ranges  of  his  own.  Studying  words  sharply, 
to  the  end  of  using  only  a  few,  and  putting  terse 
ness  before  all  flowers  of  rhetoric.  What  was  not 
marrowy  never  caught  his  praise ;  loving  indeed 
so  much  this  essential  vitality,  that  he  could  ex 
cuse  or  overlook  the  grossness  which  (in  some 
speech)  went  with  it. 

Emerson  wrote  little  after  the  close  of  the  War 
(1865) :  he  aged  early,  compared  with  a  good  many 
veterans  ;  memory  refused  him  its  old  favors  ;  his 
eyes  tired  him  and  perplexed  him  with  double  fig 
ures.  A  new  over-ocean  trip  brought  quick  move 
ment  to  his  blood — but  not  for  long.  Egypt, 
with  its  great  range  of  dynasties,  tired  him  ;  and 
so  did  the  Sphinx  —  out-staring  the  riddles  of 
"  Bramah." 

Yet  a  brave  Optimism  keeps  by  him  when  the 
shadows  are  darkest.  "  If  it  be  best  that  conscious 
personal  life  shall  continue,  it  will  continue ;  if 
not  best  then  it  will  not ;  and  we,  if  we  saw  the 


Emerson's  Grave. 


DEATH  OF  EMERSON.  199 

whole,  should  of  course  see  that  it  was  better  so." 
He  died  on  the  27th  of  April,  1882.  A  fragment 
of  granite  marks  his  grave  —  a  fitting  symbol  of 
his  nobility  of  character. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

WE  could  have  lingered  longer  over  the  last 
years  of  Emerson  ;  they  were  so  full  of 
serenities,  and  of  the  memories  of  a  life  conse 
crated  to  high  ways  of  thinking  and  to  all  honest 
ways.  That  square  old  house  of  his,  with  the 
pines  sighing  over  it,  is  somehow  much  richer  in 
suggestiveness —  even  of  country  delights  —  than 
the  tangle  of  rustic  decoration  which  once  hooded 
the  arbor  of  the  Orphic  philosopher  —  from  whose 
home  at  the  "  Hill-side"  will  always  come  pleas- 
antest  reminiscences  of  the  daughter  who  charmed 
all  boyhood  and  girlhood  with  her  stories  of  Little 
Women. 

The  Brook-Farm  Idyl  —  springing  largely  from 
the  love  and  conscience  of  the  Ripleys —  drifts 
again  before  us  with  its  glowing  even-tides  of  mer 
riment,  when  fine  young  spirits  loitered  there  and 
spun  their  fables  of  hope. 


200 


PARKER  AND   FULLER.  201 

Brownson,  though  not  of  right  in  our  story, 
showed  his  tergiversations  ;  —  not  those  of  a  clown 
or  mountebank,  but  of  a  high,  close  thinker, 
made  unsteady  by  the  toppling  weight  he  carried. 
Parker  thundered  and  glittered  from  his  theatre 
pulpit,  bringing  street-folk  to  earnest  thought 
about  subjects  which  had  been  long  masked  in 
ecclesiastic  formulas  of  speech. 

One  had  glimpse  of  that  rare-talking,  fine- 
armed,  delicate-fingered  Marchioness  Ossoli,  who 
left  little  behind  her  to  live ;  —  not  even  the 
pretty  Italian  babe  which  sprung  from  the  sole, 
dominating  romance  of  her  ambitious  life.  We 
followed  her  Dial  record ;  we  slipped  into  the 
wordy  trail  of  the  maker  of  Orphic  Sayings  —  all 
which  brought  us  again  to  the  home  and  the 
habits  of  that  other  serene  philosopher,  who  wore 
his  dignities  untarnished  by  vices  or  by  arro 
gance,  and  who  slipped  from  life  as  easily  and 
calmly  as  his  own  Concord  Eiver  slips  from  under 
bordering  vines  and  brakes  to  deeper  and  waiting 
waters  beyond. 


202       AMERICAN  LANDS  &>   LETTERS. 

Hawthorne. 

Another  Concord  name  —  though  not  such  by 
birth-right  —  is  that  of  the  Great  Romancer,*  of 


Hawthorne's  Birthplace,  Salem. 
whom  we  have  had  glimpse  at  Brook  Farm,  and 

*  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  (originally  Hathorn),  b.  1804  ;  d. 
1864.  Twice-told  Tales,  1837;  Second  Series,  1845;  Mosses 
from  an  Old  Manse,  1846;  The  Scarlet  Letter,  1850;  Blithe- 
dale  Romance,  1852  ;  The  Marble  Faun,  I860.  Life  (in  Eng 
lish  Men  of  Letters),  by  Henry  James,  Jr.;  Nathaniel 
Hawthorne  and  his  Wife,  by  Julian  Hawthorne ;  also  much 
biographic  material  in  memorial  volume  by  George  P  La- 


Captain  Nathaniel  Hathorne. 

From  a  miniature  tn  the  possession  of  Julian  Hawthorne,  Esq. 


HA  WTHORNE.  205 

whose  home  life  had  its  happy  dawn  under  the 
roof  of  the  "  Old  Manse,"  and  its  ripened  glow  at 
the  "  Way-side." 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne  was  born  in  Salem,  in  a 
small,  unpretending,  gambrel-roofed  house  —  still 
showing  its  storm  -  beaten  sides  —  in  a  narrow 
street,  almost  within  reach  of  the  scuds  of  spray 
which  a  strong  east  wind  drives  shore-ward  from 
Salem  harbor.  His  father  was  a  sea-captain,  lov 
ing  the  salty  odors  of  little  Union  Street ;  yet,  if 
we  may  trust  existing  portraits,  there  were  lines 
of  great  beauty  and  refinement  in  his  face ;  and 
a  firmness  and  dignity  too,  born  of  an  ancestry 
which  the  names  of  judges  and  counsellors 
adorned.  But  this  sea-going  father-Hathorne 
died  in  a  foreign  port,  when  his  only  son  —  our 
romancer  —  was  scarce  four  years  of  age. 

Then  came  dolorous  times  for  the  little  family 

throp,  and  (more  recently)  another  by  Mrs.  Rose  Haw 
thorne  Lathrop. 

The  James  Biography  is  interesting  —  pointed  and  polished 
—  as  his  work  always  is  :  but  rather  over-weighted  with  a  re 
dundance  of  British  condescension  —  to  which  u  manner  "  the 
clever  biographer  has  affiliated  himself  with  a  distinguished 
aptitude  and  complacency. 


206       AMERICAN  LANDS  6-   LETTERS. 

under  the  Union  Street  roof ;  the  widowed  mother 
carrying  the  dolor  through  years  of  rigid  seclu 
sion  ;  her  brother,  however  —  of  that  Manning  * 
name  so  long  and  honorably  associated  with  the 
horticultural  development  of  our  Eastern  States 
—  came  nobly  to  the  rescue ;  the  fatherless  lad 
grew  into  a  sturdy  boyhood  upon  his  uncle's  lands 
and  woods  near  to  Sebago  Lake,  in  Maine. 
"'Twas  there,"  he  says  —  under  a  whiff  of  that 
impatient  self-crimination  which  sometimes  blew 
over  him  in  his  later  years  —  ' '  that  I  caught  my 
cursed  habit  of  solitude."  But  he  was  not  wholly 
right ;  there  was  an  heirship  from  close-lipped 
Puritan  ancestors,  that  —  as  much  as  the  wilds  of 
Maine  —  put  him  into  those  solitary  moods,  from 
which  flashed  the  splendors  of  his  literary  con 
quests.  Nor  can  there  be  a  doubt  that  he  caught 
in  those  boyish  days  in  the  forests  that  throw 
their  shadow  on  Sebago,  a  knowledge  and  an  ex 
perience  of  woody  solitude,  which  afterward  gave 

*  Robert  Manning,  b.  1784 ;  d.  1842,  was  a  widely  known 
Poraologist ;  contributed  largely  to  the  costs  of  Hawthorne's 
education,  and  was  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Massachu 
setts  Horticultural  Society. 


HA  WTHORNE. 


207 


sombre  coloring  to  some  of  the  wonderful  forest 
pictures  belonging  to  Twice-told  Tales,  or  the 
Scarlet  Letter. 

A  dozen  or  more  of  the  most  impressible  of  his 
younger  years  he  passed  there  ;  coming  back  odd- 


On  the  Shores  of  Sebago  Lake. 

whiles,  for  special  schooling  (which  he  did  not 
love)  to  Salem,  and  to  the  tall,  gaunt  house  of  his 
grandfather  Manning,  still  lifting  that  cumbrous 
roof  to  the  weather  —  under  which,  at  a  later  day, 
our  necromancer  put  little  Pearl  and  Hester 
Prynne  into  their  glorified  shapes. 

There  are  stories  of  an  illness  and  of  a  lameness 


2o8       AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

in  the  new  Salem  home  ;  and  of  a  beguilement  of 
enforced  imprisonment  by  the  penning  of  a  boy 
ish  journal  —  The  Spectator.  I  had  the  privilege 
many  years  since  of  looking  over  some  numbers 
of  the  journal  —  then  in  the  keeping  of  one  of 
the  Manning  family  —  carefully  penned  in  print- 
lettering,  and  setting  forth  among  other  things, 
that  "  Nathaniel  Hathorne  [so  spelled  by  him  at 
that  date]  proposes  to  publish  by  subscription  a 
new  edition  of  the  ( Miseries  of  Authors/  to  which 
will  be  added  a  sequel  containing  facts  and  re 
marks  drawn  from  his  own  experience."  And 
again  —  sounding  somewhat  strangely  from  such 
a  source,  came  this  pronunciamento  — 

"  ON  SOLITUDE:  Man  is  naturally  a  sociable  being;  not 
formed  for  himself  alone ;  but  destined  to  bear  a  part  in  the 
great  scheme  of  nature.  All  his  pleasures  are  heightened, 
and  all  his  griefs  are  lessened  by  participation.  It  is  only  in 
society  that  the  full  energy  of  his  mind  is  aroused  and  all  its 
powers  drawn  forth.  Apart  from  the  world  there  are  no  in 
citements  to  the  pursuit  of  excellence ;  there  are  no  rivals 
to  contend  with,  and  therefore  there  is  no  improvement." 

An  elder  sister,  Elisabeth,  in  a  letter  referring 
to  those  days,  speaks  of  his '•" teasing"  habit,  as  a 


BOWD01N  COLLEGE.  211 

boy,  and  of  his  "  seizing  a  kitten  and  tossing  it 
over  a  fence."  *  This  seems  to  strike  a  false  note 
in  the  symphonies  of  those  child  years  ;  nor  do 
I  find  other  things  in  that  tone  until  I  recall  the 
gleesome  way  in  which  old  Chillingworth  ma,kes 
the  fiery  brand  of  his  persecution  eat  into  the 
very  flesh  of  poor  Dimmesdale. 

But  the  boyish  teasings,  and  all  boyish  haltings 
go  by ;  with  good  school  equipment  he  finds  his 
way  to  Bowdoin  College — with  Huguenot  flavors 
in  its  name  —  and  flanked  by  pine  woods  which 
keep  alive  recollections  of  Sebago  Lake. 

College  Mates  and  Associations. 

Bowdoin  College  was  counted  an  excellent  one  in 
those  days,  and  a  good  Northeastern  guardian  of 
the  orthodoxy,  which  was  threatened  at  Harvard. 
Dr.  William  Allen,f  maker  of  the  first  good  Amer 
ican  Biographic  Dictionary,  and  a  kindly,  pious, 

*  J.  Hawthorne's  Biography,  page  99,  vol.  i. 

t  Dr.  William  Allen,  b.  1784 ;  d.  1868  First  edition  of 
Biographical  Dictionary,  published  in  1809,  while  he  was 
Assistant  Librarian  at  Harvard  ;  2d  edition,  1832 ;  3d  edition 
(greatly  enlarged),  1857. 


212        AMERICAN  LANDS  6-    LETTERS. 

unctuous,  but  not  over-strong  man,  had  gone  there 
as  president  (1820)  only  the  year  before  the  entry 
of  Hawthorne.  Jacob  Abbott*  had  graduated 

thence  in  1820 
—  the  man  who 
afterward  opened 
a  "  Way  to  do 
Good  "  for  many 
a  zealous  "  Young 
Christian,"  and 
who  brightened 
hundreds  of  New 
England  firesides 
with  his  beguiling 
child  stories  about 
Jacob  Abbott.  "Rollo"  and 

"  Jonas."  An 
other  Abbott  brother  f  —  a  class-mate  of  Haw 
thorne's,  was  afterward  well  known  for  his  piquant 
little  histories  of  "  Kings  and  Queens,"  and  for 

*  Jacob  Abbott,  b.  1803;  d.  1879.  His  books  counted  by 
the  hundred ;  and  he  left  sons  who  have  won  distinction  in 
connection  with  the  bar,  the  pulpit,  and  journalism. 

t  John  S.  C.  Abbott,  b.  1805 ;  d.  1877. 


HORATIO  BRIDGE.  213 

his  very  roseate-colored,  but  entertaining  story  of 
Napoleon. 

A  ruddy-cheeked  young  fellow  from  Portland 
—  Henry  Longfellow  by  name  —  was  another 
classmate  of  our  romancer  whom  we  shall  again 
encounter;  nor  must  we  forget  that  bundle  of 
temperance,  anti-slavery,  and  orthodox  enthusi 
asms,  known  as  the  Rev.  George  B.  Cheever,* 
who  wrote  pungently  of  "  Deacon  Giles's  Distil 
lery,"  of  a  "  Pilgrim's  Wanderings,"  under  Mont 
Blanc,  and  for  many  a  year  lifted  up  his  strident 
voice  in  that  church  of  the  truncated  steeple, 
which  once  stood  on  Union  Square,  where  now 
Tiffany  &  Co.  dispense  jewels  of  a  different 
order. 

Yet  another  member  of  Hawthorne's  class  was 
Horatio  Bridge  f  —  later,  Commodore  Bridge  of 
the  United  States  Navy  —  whom  our  romancer 
dearly  loved  and  trusted  —  who  put  the  cheer  of 

*  George  B.  Cheever,  b.  1807 ;  d.  1890. 

f  Horatio  Bridge,  b.  1805;  graduate  of  Bowdoin,  1825. 
Was  Chief  of  Naval  Bureau  of  Provisions  and  Clothing 
throughout  the  Civil  War ;  wrote  the  Journal  of  an  African 
Cruiser^  1845  (edited  by  Hawthorne). 


214        AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 


his  earnest  encouragement  into  the  writer's  most 
dismal  days  of  waiting,  and  who  never  lost  faith 
in  either   the   genius   or  the  coming  fortunes  of 
his  friend.     Franklin  Pierce,  General  and  Presi 
dent,  was  of  the  class  of  1824  at  Bowdoin  —  hale- 
fellow   with 
both    Bridge 
and    Haw 
thorne  —  a 
life-long 
friendship 
holding    the 
three  togeth 
er  ;  and  so  it 
happened 
that  when 
Hawthorne 
came   to   the 
writing  of  his 
Forewords 
for  the  "Old 
Home  "  sketches,  he  did  not  allow  the  qualms  of 
publishers,  or  the  doubtful  savors  which  at  that 
date,   in   New   England,   beclouded   the   political 


Horatio  Bridge. 


From     "Personal    Recollections   of  Nathaniel  Haw 
thorne,  '  Harper  &•  Brothers,  281)3. 


CONCORD  MANSE.  215 

reputation  of  President  Pierce,  to  forbid  a  bold 
tribute  to  an  old  college  comrade,  who  —  whatever 
may  have  been  his  shortcomings  in  statecraft  — 
had  shown  a  lion's  courage  in  battle,  and  had  car 
ried  into  social  life  a  kindliness  and  bonhomie  that 
were  most  winning  and  beguiling.  Hawthorne's 
friendships  were  both  plucky  and  tenacious. 

I  have  named  these  contemporaries  of  those 
Bowdoin  days,  even  as  one  might  name  the 
shapes  and  tints  of  a  window  through  which  a 
great  light  is  drifting  ;  wondering  in  what  degree 
that  dominating  light  may  have  been  modified 
(if  at  all)  by  the  colorings  and  shapes  through 
which  it  made  way. 

From  College  to  Manse. 

Seventeen  long,  waiting,  anxious  years  lay  be 
tween  the  college  graduation  of  our  Romancer 
and  his  instalment  in  that  Concord  Manse  where 
the  "Mosses"  grew.  He  did  not  take  high 
honors ;  he  had  scored  his  own  path  ;  he  knew 
where  good  fish  lurked  in  the  feeders  of  the 
Androscoggin  ;  he  knew  somewhat  of  the  cellar 
age  of  the  Maine  taverners  ;  President  Allen  may 


216       AMERICAN  LANDS  &*   LETTERS. 

have   looked   askance  at   him  ,   but    the   fires    of 
ambition  were  smoking  in  him  ,  he  had  tried  his 


FANSHAWE. 


A  TALE. 


Wilt  thou  go  on  with  me1"—  BOUTHET. 


.BOSTON: 

MARSH  &  CAPEN,  362  WASHINGTON  STREET. 


PRESS  OF  FUTIfAM  AMD  BUST. 

1828. 


Facsimile  of  the  Title  Page  of  Hawthorne's  First  Book. 

hand  at  tale- writing  ;  and  only  a  year  or  two  later 
he  put  to  print  at  his  own  cost  his  first  novel  of 


EARLY  STORIES.  217 

Fanshawe.  This  proved  a  failure,  of  which  he 
would  have  destroyed  all  trace  and  memory.  The 
old  Manning  house  in  Salem  was  his  home ; 
there,  year  after  year,  he  wrought  on  new  tales 
and  brooded  ;  thence,  he  sauntered  at  night-fall 
through  the  salty  streets.  Sometimes  Peter  Parley 
bargained  with  him  for  a  story,  or  a  half-dozen  ; 
other  times,  and  later,  the  New  York  Knicker 
bocker  (at  the  hands  of  the  amiable  Gaylord  Clark), 
or  0' Sullivan  of  the  Democratic  Review  sought 
favors  —  all  scantily  and  slowly  paid  for. 

It  would  seem  as  if  —  in  the  early  thirties — the 
buoyancies  of  youth  had  fallen  away  from  him  ; 
his  poor  mother  cleaving  to  loneliness  as  solace 
for  a  grieving  widowhood ;  his  two  sisters  catch 
ing  the  "trick  of  grief";  and  he  —  as  some  notes 
seem  to  imply  —  considering  if  'twere  not  best  to 
conquer  all  the  ills  of  life,  by  ending  it !  Here  is 
a  characteristic  bit  of  one  of  his  friend  Bridge's 
sailor-like,  sweary  letters,  dated  1836  : 

"  I've  been  trying  to  think  what  you  are  so  miserable  for. 
.  .  .  Suppose  you  get  but  $300  per  annum  for  your 
writings  You  can  with  economy  live  upon  that,  though  it 
would  be  a  d— d  tight  squeeze." 


218       AMERICAN  LANDS  &>   LETTERS. 

In  the  next  year  the  same  bouncing  friend,  on 
hearing  a  rumor  that  Hawthorne  had  thought  of 
marriage,  blows  cold  upon  it.  "I  am  in  doubt," 
he  says,  "  if  you  would  be  more  happy,  .  .  . 
and  am  sure  that  unless  you  are  fortunate  in  your 
choice  you  will  be  wretched  in  a  ten-fold  de 
gree."  *  No  such  source  of  wretchedness  ever 
came  nigh  him.  It  will  hardly  be  believed  that 
in  those  years  when  Bridge  was  extending  to  him 
his  rough  commiseration,  the  first  series  of  the 
Twice-told  Tales  had  been  published  (1837),  and 
though  meeting  with  highest  critical  approval, 
commanded  little  popular  success  and  still  less  of 
moneyed  return. 

Two  years  thereafter  carne  a  lifting  of  the 
clouds,  when  Hawthorne,  at  the  instance  of 
George  Bancroft,  became  "  weigher  and  ganger  " 
at  the  Port  of  Boston,  with  an  annual  salary  of 
certainly  not  more  than  $1,200.  'Twas  "grimy 
work,"  as  he  said,  but  cheery  ;  and  from  two 
years  in  that  service  he  put  a  helpless  thousand 
dollars  into  the  Brook  Farm  enterprise  and  a  new 

*  Julian  Hawthorne's  Biography,  page  138,  vol.  i 


BOSTON   WHARVES. 


219 


zeal  into  his  laggard  courtship.  We  have  delight 
ful  glimpses  of  him  —  fumbling  over  salt  ships  at 
Long  Wharf  —  sleeping  on  piles  of  sails  —  steal 
ing  away  to  Salem  —  forecasting  the  fate  of  his 
Gentle  Boy  —  sauntering  along  the  Common  or 


Frontispiece  to  the  Rare  Edition  of  1839,  of  Hawthorne's 
"Gentle  Boy." 

From  a  cofy  in  the  collection  of  Peter  Gilsey,  Esq. 

into  the  old  Athenaeum  gallery  —  putting  an  ever 
new  warmth  into  letters  written  for  Miss  Sophia 
Peabody,  with  such  happy  interjections  as  this : 

"  Invited  to  dine  at  Mr.  Bancroft's  yesterday,  with  Miss 


220       AMERICAN  LANDS  &*   LETTERS. 

Margaret  Fuller;  but  Providence  had  given  me  some  busi 
ness  to  do,  for  which  I  was  very  thankful. 

"  Is  not  this  a  beautiful  morning  ?   (November,  1840.) 

"  The  sun  shines  into  my  soul."  * 

Quick  upon  this  came,  with  a  change  in  the 
political  tides  (Harrison  supplanting  Van  Buren), 
an  upset  of  salt-measuring  on  Boston  wharves,  and 
of  that  unctuous  experience  in  the  barn-yards  of 
Brook  Farm,  of  which  we  have  already  had  some 
flavors.  There  was  only  a  year  or  so  of  this ;  he  — 
with  a  financial  strabismus  in  his  outlook — wonder 
ing  greatly  how  that  thousand  dollars,  invested  in 
a  "stock  company"  should  slip  so  utterly  from 
him,  down  the  pretty  slopes  where  pine-trees 
grew  and  where  the  Apostle  Eliot  preached  !  But 
notwithstanding  this  he  courageously  marries ; 
and  those  twain  —  mated  of  Heaven  if  ever  any 
couple  were  —  went  to  live  (1842)  in  that  old 
"Manse"  at  Concord,  about  which  Minister- 
memories  of  Ripleys  and  Emersons  hung  haunt- 
ingly,  and  where  bridal  doves  cooed  a  welcome. 

The  introduction  to  that  book  of  Mosses  from 
an  Old  Manse  is  itself  a  charming  bit  of  autobi- 

*  American  Note  Books,  vol.  i.,  p.  221. 


MANSE    VISITORS.  223 

ography  —  so  charming,  so  full,  and  so  pictu 
resque,  that  it  warns  me  not  to  dwell  descrip 
tively  upon  that  idyl  in  Hawthorne's  life. 

Emerson  —  half  shyly,  half  magisterially — used 
to  break  in  upon  that  quietude  among  the 
"mosses"  —  delighted  to  talk  by  the  half -hour  to 
this  man,  whose  listening  was  as  apt  as  speech. 
Thoreau  found  his  woodsy  way  thither,  teaching 
him  to  paddle  and  selling  him  a  boat.  Alcott 
brought  his  long  discourse  there  —  except  the 
new  master  slipped  out  by  the  river  side  —  to  un 
ready  and  sometimes  impatient  ears.  George  Hil- 
lard,  *  of  Boston,  too,  always  an  esteemed  and 
welcome  friend,  finds  his  way  to  this  new  home 
—  so  do  others  not  so  congenial. 

Even  at  pre-arranged  social  gatherings  there 
was  a  certain  aloofness  on  his  part ;  not  joining 
heartily  in  general  talk  ;  yet  watchful  at  noting 

*  George  S.  Hillard,  b.  1808;  d.  1879;  Harvard  College, 
1828.  He  taught  for  a  time  at  Round  Hill  School,  and  was 
associated  with  George  Ripley  in  editing  the  Christian  Reg 
ister.  Better  known  as  editor  of  Boston  Courier ;  he  was 
a  clever  writer,  of  high,  aesthetic  instincts,  true,  and  unswerv 
ingly  honest.  Six  Months  in  Italy,  pub.  1853;  Life  of 
George  Ticknor,  1873. 


224       AMERICAN  LANDS  6-   LETTERS. 

all  its  turns  —  unless  its  vapidity  lured  him  into 
looking  yearningly  out  o'  window  ;  yet  now  and 
then  putting  in  a  query  or  comment  which  showed 
quick  cognizance  of  some  of  the  hack-sets,  and 
foregone  utterances  ;  or,  if  not  comment,  then 
other  provocative  of  change  —  a  snag  tossed  into 
the  current  which  made  a  parting  and  a  rustling 
in  the  tide  of  talk.  Forever,  too,  he  was  retreat 
ing  kindly  and  gratefully  to  his  solitude  and  his 
silent  musings,  as  he  floated  at  even-fall  up  and 
down  the  silent  river.  Again,  and  again,  I  call  to 
mind  that  letter  of  his  dating  from  these  years  : 

u  I  do  wish  these  blockheads,  and  all  other  blockheads 
in  this  world,  could  comprehend  how  inestimable  are  the 
quiet  hours  of  a  busy  man  —  especially  when  that  man  has 
no  native  impulse  to  keep  him  busy  —  but  is  continually 
forced  to  battle  with  his  own  nature,  which  yearns  for 
seclusion  (the  solitude  of  a  mated  two)  and  freedom  to 
think  and  dream  and  feel."  * 

There  were  undoubted  advantages  in  that  lone 
liness  toward  which  he  gravitated  ;  his  thoughts 
did  not  get  dilution  by  mingling  with  thoughts  of 
others,  but  took  on  density  and  normal  crystalliza- 

*  Julian  Hawthorne's  Biography,  vol.  i  ,  p.  221. 


HIS  SOLITUDE.  225 

tion.  Of  course,  if  at  start  such  mind  were  fee 
ble  and  had  no  emergent  aptitudes,  solitariness 
could  be  no  way  helpful  ;  but  if,  as  here,  it  tend 
ed  to  explorative  forays — if  it  had  instinctive  and 
penetrative  out-reach,  grappling  always  after  new 
truths  or  new  collocations  of  old  truths  —  then, 
solitude,  and  a  mental  attitude  undisturbed  by 
other  voices  or  meddlesome  interjection  of 
others'  thoughts,  insure,  not  only  the  repose 
which  permits  concentration,  but  a  clarity  of 
mind  that  makes  it  pervious  to  the  finest  and 
delicatest  shades  of  truth. 

But  the  solitude  of  the  Manse  —  as  the  master 
himself  has  hinted  —  was  a  solitude  a  deux  :  and 
before  the  sojourn  among  the  mosses  had  ended 
'twas  even  more  than  this  —  for  a  little  stranger 
had  come,  to  knit  closer  the  home  bonds  and  to  coo 
with  the  doves ;  and  Hawthorne's  indebtedness 
to  the  mistress  of  his  domesticity  was  always  im 
mense —  her  solicitude,  her  fondness,  her  wakeful 
guard  over  his  privacies  and  solitariness  (if  de 
manded),  her  keen  sympathy,  her  acute  and  in 
telligent  appreciation  of  his  subtlest  word,  her 
never-failing  and  always  discerning  praises  of  his 


226       AMERICAN  LANDS  fr   LETTERS. 

strongest  picturings  of  human  loves  and  embroil 
ments,  were  beyond  measure.  And  if  there  were 
some  harsh  notes,  due  to  sharp  and  needful 
economies,  blending  with  the  harmonies  of  that 
early  home,  what  an  aureole  of  golden  light  all 
those  little  economies  take  on  under  the  pleasant 
narrative  of  the  devoted  wife  !  * 


The  Surveyorship  and  Life  at  Lenox. 

No  such  aureole  belongs  to  the  chinking  gold 
coin  which  soon  after  has  a  little  intermittent  out 
pour  from  the  till  of  the  Salem  Custom-house 
upon  his  domestic  paths  ;  the  place  of  Surveyor 
in  that  old  town  —  whither  he  presently  wends 
his  way  (1846),  came  to  him  during  the  adminis 
tration  of  President  Polk ;  f  and  again  he  finds 
shelter  under  ancestral  roofs  where  was  to  ripen 
that  wonderful  story  of  the  Scarlet  Letter. 

It  is  delightful  to  see  the  exuberant  spirit  in 
which  Mrs.  Hawthorne  makes  note  of  the  change 


*  Memories  of  Hawthorne,  edited  by  Mrs   Rose  Lathrop. 
t  James  K.  Polk,  b.  1795;  d.  1849;  President,  1845-49. 


SALEM   CUSTOM-HOUSE.  227 


The  Custom-House,  Salem. 

in  their  financial  horizon ;  she  writes  under  date 
of  March,  1846  : 

*'  My  husband   is   nominated    by  the   President  himself. 
.     .     .     It  is  now  certain,  and  so  I  tell  it  to  you.     .     . 
The   salary  is   twelve   hundred  dollars.     .     .     .     Will  you 
ask  father  to  go  to  Earle's  and  order  for  Mr.  Hawthorne  a 
suit  of  clothes ;  the  coat  to  be  of  broadcloth,  of  six  or  seven 


228       AMERICAN  LANDS  6-   LETTERS. 

dollars  a  yard  ;  the  pantaloons  of  kerseymere  or  broadcloth 
of  quality  to  correspond  ;  and  the  vest  of  satin  —  all  to  be 
black?" 

But  government  place  and  pay  do  not  promote 
quickened  work  from  the  Romancer  ;  how  rarely 
they  do  !  A  few  half-finished  sketches,  get  full 


SllltV1 

Reduced  Facsimile  of  Hawthorne's  Stamp  as  Surveyor. 

equipment  ;  all  the  while,  too,  his  eyes  and  ears 
are  intent  ;  and  those  ancient  retainers  of  the 
Government  who  loll  in  their  chairs  —  tipped 
back  against  the  walls  in  the  Custom-house  Hall 
—  and  tell  of  fat,  gone-by  dinners,  and  unctuous 
oyster  sauces,  get  their  pictures  printed  in  a  fash 
ion  that  glows  yet  —  and  will  glow  for  many  a 


LIFE  AT  SALEM.  229 

year  to  come — upon  the  opening  pages  of  the 
Scarlet  Letter. 

Perhaps,  also,  the  finishing  touches  may  have 
been  put  to  the  Snow  Image  in  those  Custom 
house  days  at  Salem  ;  certainly,  too,  there  were 
vacation  jaunts,  and  others  —  to  Boston;  that 
good  friend  George  Hillard  bidding  him  always 
welcome;  urging  the  necessity  of  his  going  to 
dine  with  Longfellow  ;  but,  says  Hawthorne,  in 
his  journal —  "  I  have  an  almost  miraculous  pow 
er  of  escaping  from  necessities  of  this  kind." 
Guarding  thus  his  old  solitariness ;  watching  the 
children  at  their  little  diversions  which  take  color 
from  the  gray  surroundings  ["  Now,"  says  Una, 
"you  must  keep  still,  and  play  that  you're  dy 
ing  ! "]  ;  while  in  the  chamber  above,  the  elder 
Mrs.  Hawthorne,  long  estranged  from  the  world 
by  her  widowed  grief,  is  dying  in  earnest.  This 
happens  in  1849  ;  and  in  the  same  year,  with  the 
brooding  unrest  that  comes  with  a  political 
change  —  General  Taylor  supplanting  Polk  — 
there  is  fear  that  the  Surveyorship  may  pass  into 
other  hands. 

Friends    are    active    indeed  ;    but    friends    of 


230       AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

other  claimants  of  place,  are  also  active  —  no 
tably  a  zealous  clergyman  of  the  town,  who  gets 
his  moral  portrait  outlined  in  the  family  letters, 
with  a  raw  and  red  coloring  that  has  great  stay 
ing  quality.  What  wonder  if  —  with  illness  in 
the  head  of  the  house,  his  mother  dying,  his 
means  small,  and  his  place  at  the  public  crib 
closed  to  him  —  there  should  creep  into  his  oc 
casional  writing  of  that  date  a  lurid  tint  ?  What 
wonder  if  the  old  "Inspector,"  reckoned  un 
friendly,  should  take  from  his  pen  a  black  eye  to 
carry  into  that  gallery  of  portraits  which  illustrate 
his  great  Salem  romance  ?  [I  wish  that,  instead 
of  such  personal  ink-marks,  the  fiery  spirit  of  the 
author  had  been  wrought  upon  to  scourge,  as  it  de 
serves,  that  scramble  for  political  spoil  which  still 
gives  a  heathenish  cast  to  public  service  in  America.] 
I  speak  of  the  Scarlet  Letter  as  the  Salem  ro 
mance,  because  'twas  virtually  finished  there  ;  and 
it  was  there  he  was  won  over  to  deliver  the  manu 
script  to  that  shrewd,  kindly,  quick-witted  poet- 
publisher  *  who  befriended  the  author  throughout 

*  James    T.   Fields,   b.   1817;    d.    1881.     Poems,  Boston, 
1849 ;  Yesterdays  with  Authors,  1872. 


RELATIONS   WITH  PUBLISHER. 


231 


his  life  —  as  happy  a  copartnery,  almost,  as  that 
of  his  marriage.     Fields  was  not  only  sympathetic 
through  and  through,  with  all  the  lines  of  Haw 
thorne's  work,    but  he 
was    actively   encourag 
ing  and  stimulative ;  he 
knew  how  to  make  his 
sympathy   bear  fruit  — 
not  only  giving  those 
warm  tid-bits  of  praise 
(which  authors  have   a 
ripe  taste  for)  but    he 
brought   coyly,  as  it 
were,   and    accidentally 

to  his  knowledge  other  waifs  of  admiring  comment, 
sterling  in  quality,  from  far-away  quarters.  Thus 
he  stirred  in  the  author  self-gratulatory  currents 
of  blood,  which  ran  into  his  pen-strokes,  and 
vitalized  his  industries  ;  nor  did  the  patron  forget 
those  little  blessings  of  books  which  came  from 
the  corner  of  Milk  Street,  to  cheer  his  Christ- 
mases ;  and  those  other-time  gifts  of  other  sorts, 
which  kept  the  animating  friendship  of  the  two 
in  a  wakeful  condition. 


James  T.  Fields. 


232       AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

Life  in  Berkshire. 

It  was  early  in  1850  that  Hawthorne  took  final 
leave  of  Salem — never  again,  it  is  to  be  feared, 
warming  toward  its  wharves  and  its  quiet  streets 
—  and  planted  himself  in  a  red  cottage,  upon  a 
pretty  slope  of  the  Berkshire  hills.  The  region 
was  beautiful ;  a  little  way  southward  was  that 
Stockbridge  realm,  which  we  found  all  a-trill  with 
Sedgwick  solos  *  or  duets  ;  and  northward —  by  as 
easy  a  walk  —  was  the  lifted  town  of  Lenox,  where 
now  gigantic  villas  and  the  flower-muffled  wheels 
of  Fashion  have  displaced  the  old  charming  and 
homely  ruralities  which  once  clothed  the  hills. 

To  that  red  Hawthorne  cottage  —  now  wholly 
gone  —  used  to  come  a-visiting  in  those  days,  G.  P. 
E.  James,  that  kindly  master  of  Knights  "  in 
gay  caparison/'  and  Fanny  Kemble  Butler,  quick 
to  detect  the  Shakespearian  savors  which  this 
American  had  caught  from  the  great  master ; 
J.  T.  Headley,  f  was  there  —  a  good  guide  to  the 

*  American  Lands  and  Letters,  vol.  i.,  p.  350. 
f  Joel  T.  Headley,  b.   1813;  d.   1897.     Napoleon  and  his 
Marshals,  1846. 


BERKSHIRE    VISITORS. 


235 


mountain  fastnesses  of  the  region,  who  had  jnst 
won  a  baptism  into  the  fold  of  popular  authors, 
by  the  inspiriting  fife  and  drum  of  his  "Napo 
leon"  and  of  his 
"Washington."  Her 
man  Melville  *  was  a 
not-far-off  neighbor, 
whose  Typee  and 
Omoo  had  delighted 
Hawthorne  as  well  as  a 
world  of  readers  ;  and 
who  at  this  epoch  of  his 
life — distrained  of  ear 
lier  simplicities  —  was 
torturing  himself  with 


Herman   Melville. 


From  a  photograph  in  the  collection  of 
Robert  Coster,  Esq. 


the  metaphysic  subtle 
ties  of  Moby  Dick  and  whipping  all  the  depths  of 
his  thought  into  turbulent  and  misty  spray. 

The  Hawthorne  cottage  was  small,  but  the 
mistress,  by  her  winsome  housekeepery,  made 
it  charming ;  by  simple  replicas  of  tracery  or 
drawing,  Michael  Angel  o's  Sybils  and  Prophets 


*  Herman  Melville,  b.  1819;  d.  1891.      Typee,  1846;  Moby 
Dick,  or  the  White  Whale,  1851. 


236       AMERICAN  LANDS  «&-    LETTERS. 

preached  from  the  walls  :  and  so  did  Raphael  with 
some  Madonna  or  "  Transfiguration/'  and  Cor- 
reggio  with  his  cherub  pieties ;  while  the  elfin  chil 
dren  of  the  family  disported  with  the  household 
pets,  or  wandered  away  with  the  master  to  the 
lake-side,  where  the  five-year-old  boy  throws  off 
his  line,  and  the  girl  cries  out  to  the  mountain 
shore,  for  "  God  to  say  the  echo." 

What  was  written  under  those  conditions  should 
be  written  well ;  and  so  it  was.  Many  of  the 
"  Wonder "  Stories  grew  there;  and  so  did  that 
more  marvellous  New-England  prose  poem,  about 
the  stern.  Hepzibah  and  the  blithe  Phoebe,  which 
we  know  as  the  House  of  the  Seven  Gables  ;  if  not 
his  best  book  (as  the  author  thought  it  in  his 
serener  moods),  it  is  certainly  next  best.  If 
Dante  had  ever  told  a  story  of  the  crime  and  mys 
teries  which  saturated  some  old  country  house 
upon  the  Euganean  hills,  I  think  it  would  have 
had  much  of  the  color,  and  much  of  the  high, 
fierce  lights  which  blaze  about  the  gables  of  the 
Pynchons  !  Yet  it  is  all  his  own  ; — change  as  his 
theme  may,  the  author  is  redolent  everywhere  of 
his  own  clean  and  complete  self-hood  ;  he  is  not 


LEAVE    OF  BERKSHIRE.  237 

like  the  rare  Stevenson  of  our  day,  on  whose  close- 
thumbed  pages  we  encounter  —  now,  Defoe  with 
his  delicious  particularity  and  naivete —  now,  find 
him  egotizing,  as  does  Montaigne,  or  lapsing  into 
such  placid  humors  as  embalm  the  periods  of 
Lamb  ;  or,  yet  again,  catching  in  smart  grip  the 
trumpet  of  some  old  glorified  Romancer,  and 
summoning  his  knights  (who  are  more  than  toy- 
knights)  to  file  down  once  more  from  their  old 
mediaeval  heights  upon  the  dusty  plains  of  to-day. 
No  such  golden  memorial-trail  enwraps  the  books 
of  the  Master  of  Puritan  Romance  ;  but,  always 
the  severe,  unshaken,  individual  note  was  upper 
most — bred  of  that  JSTew  Englandism  in  which 
stern  old  judges  of  witchcraft  battled  with  wrong 
doers,  and  Pearl-like  children  wandered  in  forest 
solitudes,  where  silence  brooded  and  paths  spar 
kled  in  the  frosts. 

Religious  Qualities  in  Haivthorne. 

Hawthorne's  home  affections  were  never  rooted 
deeply  in  Berkshire  ;  unrest  overtook  him  ;  if  he 
did  not  sigh  for  Salem,  he  did  sigh  for  a  closer 
neighborhood  with  seas  and  their  salty  airs.  He 


238       AMERICAN  LANDS  fr   LETTERS. 

loved  change,  too ;  and  at  West  Newton  (1851- 
52)  he  set  himself  with  zeal  to  the  working  out 
of  his  romance  of  Blithedale.  By  a  tramp 
through  Newton  Highland  and  over  Oak  Hill, 
he  could  reach  the  Brook  -  Farm  region,  and 
sharpen  his  memory  of  the  woods  and  brooks ; 
and  if  the  brilliant  Zenobia  had  never  her  coun 
terpart  in  the  Marchioness  Ossoli  (who  has  just 
now,  1851,  gone  to  death  in  a  Fire-Island  wreck), 
we  may  be  sure  that  the  personality  of  our  au 
thor  does  sometimes  declare  itself  in  the  speech  of 
Miles  Coverdale.  Isn't  it  the  very  Hawthorne, 
who  has  some  time  reminded  his  little  daughter 
(when  she  has  stolen  her  brother's  seat)  of  Christ's 
teachings  —  that  overhears  Hollingsworth,  in  the 
chamber  at  Blithedale  ? 

"  The  solemn  murmur  of  his  voice  made  its  way  to  my 
ears,  compelling  me  to  be  an  auditor  of  his  awful  privacy 
with  the  Creator.  It  affected  me  with  a  deep  reverence  for 
Hollingsworth, which  no  familiarity  then  existing,  or  that  after 
wards  grew  more  intimate  between  us — no,  nor  any  subsequent 
perception  of  his  own  great  errors — ever  quite  effaced."  * 

*  Blithedale  Romance,  p.  48  (1st  edition).  The  incident 
respecting  his  daughter  may  be  found  in  a  letter  of  Mrs. 
Hawthorne,  date  of  June,  1850. 


HAWTHORNE'S  RELIGION.  239 

I  think  there  is  something  more  in  this  than 
belongs  to  "  the  distant  and  imaginative  rever 
ence  "  which  historian  Green  attributes  to  Shake 
speare.  Yet  Hawthorne  was  never  apt  at  church- 
going  or  close  sermon-listening.  When  in  a 
religious  mood,  he  did  not  want  his  "  builded 
forecasts "  to  be  toppled  over  by  another's  con 
ventional  masonry  or  dead  weight ;  he  used  to 
urge  strenuously  —  and  I  think  wisely  —  that  the 
Bible  publishers  should  recast  the  sacred  writings 
into  various  volumes  of  pocketable  size,  so  that 
those  who  loved  such,  might  keep  to  the  Christ- 
story,  or  the  lordly  eloquence  of  Isaiah  and  other 
prophets,  without  the  "drag"  of  statistic  Chroni 
cles  and  the  tedious  minuscules  of  Levitican  law  ; 
always  doubting  the  good  proportions  of  humanly 
built  theologies,  and  the  ponderous  phraseologies 
of  the  doctors;  yet  believing  —  if  not  devoutly, 
yet  absolutely  —  in  some  Supreme  Representative 
of  Justice  and  Mercy  and  Righteousness,  who  is, 
and  who  Reigns.  Else  he  could  never  have  put 
poor  Hepzibah  into  her  eager  effort  to 

"  Send    up    a    prayer    through    the    dense    gray   clouds 
[overhanging    her]    from   which   it   fell    back   a 


240       AMERICAN  LANDS  &*   LETTERS. 

lump  of  lead  upon  her  heart.  .  .  .  But  Hepzibah  did 
not  see  that,  just  as  there  comes  a  warm  sunbeam  into 
every  cottage  window,  so  comes  a  love-beam  of  God's  care 
and  pity  for  every  separate  need."  * 

Plawthorne  had  a  noble  scorn  of  falsity,  which 
was  in  itself  a  good  sort  of  religion. 


New  Changes. 

There  was  large  profit  accruing  from  the  two 
books  —  Seven  Gables  and  the  Blitliedale  Romance 
—  so  that  our  author  was  at  length  (and  for  the 
first  time)  enabled  to  buy  and  equip  a  home  of  his 
own — now  well  known  as  "  Wayside  "  in  Concord. 
It  was  an  unpretending  home,  under  the  lea  of 
a  pine-clad  hill,  flanking  the  Lexington  road, 
and  looking  out  southerly,  over  a  stretch  of 
alluvial  meadow,  which  rolled  into  other  pine- 
clad  hills,  two  miles  away,  in  whose  lap  lay 
the  pretty  Walden  Pond.  But  hardly  had  he 
nestled  into  this  new  home  when  other  and 
broader  changes  came,  putting  a  livelier  color 
upon  his  prospects. 


*  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,  vol.  ii.,  p.  12G. 


LIVERPOOL    CONSULATE.  243 

In  the  autumn  of  1852  his  old  college  mate 
Franklin  Pierce  was  elected  President ;  and  early 
in  the  following  spring  Hawthorne  was  named 
Consul  for  Liverpool.  The  office  was  not  at 
that  time  a  salaried  one,  but  was  worth  to  the 
incumbent,  through  fees,  twenty  to  thirty  thou 
sand  dollars  per  annum.*  This  gave  a  more 
faery-like  hue  to  the  immediate  future  than  had 
belonged  to  many  recent  years  of  the  "  Survey 
or's  "  family ;  and  we  may  be  sure  that  it  was 
with  buoyant  hearts  that  they  set  off  for  the  Old 
Home  which  was  to  have  a  new  picturing  on  the 
pages  of  Hawthorne's  English  book,  and  on  the 
pages  of  his  life. 

Haivthorne's  Personality 

It  was  just  at  this  juncture,  when  the  fame 
of  the  Scarlet  Letter  and  of  the  Seven  Gables  was 

*  Henry    James,  Jr.,  Biography    (p.    141)    errs    in   say- 
,  ing  u  salary  attached  was  reduced  by  Congress,"  etc.     No 
salary  was  attached  until  after  the  date  of  Hawthorne's  ap 
pointment.     Some  time  in  1853  or  '54  it  was  fixed  at  $7,500. 
Three  months  of  clerical  service  in  the  consular  office  of 
Liverpool  in  1844,  gave  to  the  present  writer  some  knowl 
edge  of  its  inner  workings. 
16 


244       AMERICAN  LANDS  &>   LETTERS. 


fresh,  and  when  the  plaudits  of  tens  of  thousands 
of  admirers  were  mingling  with  the  grat illations 
of  those  friends  who  bade  him  God  speed  !  in  his 
voyage  across  seas,  that  I  had  the  honor  of 
meeting  with  the  distinguished  author  for  the 
first  time ;  and  gracious  pardon  will  I  am  sure  bo 

shown  me,   if  I   try  to 
recall,  with  some  partic 
ularity,  the  details  and 
^  memories  of  that  early 

jjr  interview. 

^L  The  time  was  April  of 

^Hh, 

1853  ;  a  journey  south- 
%  v%  ward   had    brought   me 

to  Wilhird's  Hotel  in 
Washington.  Haw 
thorne  was  a  fellow- 
lodger,  in  company  with  his  cheery  publisher 
William  D.  Ticknor,  whom  I  had  previously 
known,  and  through  whose  off-hand,  kindly  offices, 
opportunity  was  given  of  paying  personal  homage 
to  the  author. 

Mr.    Hawthorne     was     then     nearing     fifty  — 
strong,  erect,  broad-shouldered,  alert  —  his  abun- 


W.  D.  Ticknor. 


Hawthorne  at  the  Age  of  Forty-eight. 

From  a  portrait  painted  in  1852  by  C.  G.  Thompson  and  noiu  in  the  possession  of  Mr 
Rose  Hawthorne  Lathrop. 


HAWTHORNE'S  PERSONALITY.         247 

dant  hair  touched  with  gray,  his  features  all 
cast  in  Greek  mould  and  his  fine  eyes  full  of 
searchingness,  and  yet  of  kindliness ;  his  voice 
deep,  with  a  weighty  resounding  quality,  as  if 
bearing  echoes  of  things  unspoken  ;  no  arrogance, 
no  assurance  even,  but  rather  there  hung  about 
his  manner  and  his  speech  a  cloud  of  self-distrust, 
of  mal-aise,  as  if  he  were  on  the  defensive  in  re 
spect  of  his  own  quietudes,  and  determined  to  rest 
there.  Withal,  it  was  a  winning  shyness ;  and 
when  —  somewhat  later  —  his  jolly  friend  Ticknor 
tapped  him  on  the  shoulder,  and  told  him  how 
some  lad  wanted  to  be  presented,  there  was  some 
thing  almost  painful  in  the  abashed  manner  with 
which  the  famous  author  awaited  a  school-boy's 
homage  —  cringing  under  such  contact  with  con 
ventional  usage,  as  a  school-girl  might. 

Yet  over  and  over  it  happened,  that  the  easy, 
outspoken  cheeriness  —  like  that  of  his  friend 
Pike  or  of  Ticknor  —  though  of  a  total  stranger, 
would  drive  off  his  shrinking  habit,  and  inoculate 
him  with  a  corresponding  frankness  and  jollity. 
A  seat  adjoining  his,  for  a  day  or  two,  at  the  hotel 
table,  gave  delightful  opportunity  for  observation, 


248        AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

nor  can  I  ever  forget  the  generous  insistence  with 
which  he  urged  my  going  with  him  for  a  morning 
call  upon  the  President  (from  whom  he  had  al 


ready  received  his  consular  appointment)  ;  and 
the  beaming  welcome  given  by  his  old  college 
friend.  No  one  in  search  of  political  favor  could 
have  desired  a  happier  introduction ;  and  it  did 


BANQUETINGS.  249 

happen  that  the  present  writer  was  at  that  epoch 
—  in  view  of  some  special  historic  studies  —  an 
applicant  for  a  small  consular  post  on  the  Med 
iterranean  ;  and  as  the  place  had  no  pecuniary 
value,  and  was  hence  unsought,  the  path  to  it 
was  made  easy  and  flowery. 

A  certain  familiarity  with  the  routine  of  social 
duties  of  the  Liverpool  consulate  enabled  me 
to  give  to  Hawthorne  some  hints,  which  were 
eagerly  received.  The  possible  calls  upon  him 
for  speech-making,,  at  public  (or  private)  com 
plimentary  dinners  loomed  before  him,  even 
then,  in  terrific  shapes.  It  would  not,  I  think,  be 
too  much  to  say,  that  these  awful  apprehensions 
cast  a  leaden  hue  over  his  official  sky,  and  over 
all  his  promise  of  European  enjoyment.  We  all 
know  how  bravely  he  came  out  of  such  dread 
experiences,  and  how  he  has  put  his  glowing  con 
quest  on  record  in  the  delightful  story  of  a  Lord 
Mayor's  Banquet.* 

Yet  another  and  more  notable  subject  of  talk, 
I  recall,  as  we  sat  on  a  spring  eventide,  upon  a 

*  Our  Old  Home,  p.  358. 


250       AMERICAN  LANDS  6-   LETTERS. 

little  balcony,  which  in  those  days  hung  out 
from  the  front  of  WillarcPs  Hotel  and  gave 
easy  view  up  and  down  of  the  passers-by  upon 
the  great  breadth  of  Pennsylvania  Avenue  — 


Willard's  Hotel  as  it  Appeared  in  the  'Fifties. 

From  i  J>rint  in  the  collection  of  James  /•".  Hood,  Esq,  of  Washington. 

then  innocent  of  trolleys  or  of  asphalt,  and  swept 
on  occasions  with  gusty  spasms  of  dust.  We  had 
dined  together ;  we  had  been  talking  of  the 
great  success  which  had  attended  the  issue  of  his 
more  recent  books ;  possibly  the  eagerness  with 


HAWTHORNE.  251 

which  this  had  been  set  forth  by  a  young  and 
fresh  admirer  had  put  him  into  a  warm  com 
municative  glow ;  possibly  the  chasse-ennui  of  a 
little  glass  of  Chartreuse  may  have  added  to  the 
glow ;  however  this  might  be,  there  certainly 
came  to  his  speech  then  and  there  a  curiously 
earnest  presentment  of  the  claims  of  authors  to 
public  favor  and  to  public  rewards  —  whether  of 
place  or  pension.  "  Who  puts  such  touch  to  the 
heart-strings  of  a  people  ?  Who  leads  them  on  to 
such  climacterics  of  hope  —  of  courage  ?  Who 
kneads  their  sympathies  and  their  passions  in 
such  masterful  grasp  ?  Isn't  this  a  leadership  to 
be  reckoned  with  and  to  be  recognized  by  some 
thing  more  than  the  paltry  purchase  of  a  few 
books,  of  which  the  publisher  (though  he  be  ex 
cellent  good  fellow)  is  largest  beneficiary  ?  Is  it 
not  time  for  a  new  shuffling  of  the  cards  —  so 
that  if  a  man  can  chant  as  Homer  chanted  and 
set  a  score  of  rhapsodists  to  the  hymning  of  his 
song  through  the  great  cities  of  the  land,  he 
should  still  struggle  on  —  blind  and  poor  —  or 
serving  as  '  Surveyor/  to  be  ousted  on  the  next 
Ides?" 


252       AMERICAN  LANDS  &•   LETTERS. 

—  No,  I  have  no  right  to  serve  myself  with 
quotation  marks  here,  as  if  I  were  citing  the  very 
words  of  Hawthorne's  talk  ;  'tis  impossible  to  re 
call  them ;  yet  the  large  assertion  that  he  made 
of  the  dignities  and  of  the  reach  of  the  writer's 
influences  is  still  most  vivid  in  my  mind.*  With 
al  there  was  no  bitterness  —  no  pugnacious  jeal 
ousies —  no  egoism.  It  was  the  talk  rather  of  one 
looking  down  from  skyey  heights  upon  those 
struggling  at  mundane  games  for  a  good  footing 
or  a  winning  stroke  ;  perhaps,  too,  there  Avas  a 
glimmer,  here  and  there,  of  Mephistophelian  mis 
chief —  as  if  he  were  testing  a  fervid  young 
listener  with  a  psychologic  puzzle.  I  think  he 
loved  putting  such  puzzles  to  the  brains  of  others 
—  all  the  better  if  young,  and  intently  watching 
issues. 

That  listening  to  his  low,  yet  impassioned 
words  —  subtle  sometimes,  but  always  clear  —  and 

*I  cite  as  "in  line  "  with  this  exuberant  talk  one  of  his 
"  notes "  (given  in  the  Biography  by  Julian  Hawthorne, 
vol.  i.  p.  491) — "  words,  so  innocent  and  powerless  are  they, 
as  standing  in  a  dictionary ;  how  potent  for  good  or  evil  they 
become  to  one  who  knows  how  to  combine  them  J " 


HA  WTHORNE.  2  5  3 

that  vision  of  his  pale  noble  face  catching  as  he 
talked  the  last  glow  of  an  April  twilight  —  dwells 
with  me.  Three  months  after,  I  saw  him  again  in 
the  murky  neighborhood  of  St.  Nicholas's  church 
yard  in  Liverpool,  not  yet  reconciled  to  the  sod 
den  mists  of  the  Lancashire  coasts ;  and  again, 
two  years  thereafter — at  the  Adelphi ;  wonted  now 
to  all  the  fogs  and  to  the  juicy  sirloins  of  the  Irish 
black  cattle,  and  with  the  fears  of  banqueting 
speeches  all  gone  by.  His  inbred  Americanism 
still  rampant  —  nay,  sometimes  provincially  de 
fiant  ;  yet  love  of  things  English  —  things,  more 
than  men  —  had  grown  over  him  ;  the  ivies  of  old 
ruins  took  him  graciously  in  their  clasp,  and  with 
such  close  hug  of  their  abounding  tendrils  as  he 
did  not  struggle  against.  He  loved  the  mosses  on 
stories,  and  on  way-sides,  and  on  cottage  walls  ; 
and  if  he  shrunk  from  some  of  the  more  lusty 
show  of  British  womanhood,  he  loved  the  quiet 
fireside  virtues  and  stanchness  which  adorned  it ; 
and  came  to  have  dear  images  of  the  Old  Home 
planted  and  glowing  in  his  heart. 


254       AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

European  Life. 

European  life  made  deep  markings  upon  his 
sensitive  nature,  but  he  did  never  struggle  to  put 
on  its  costumes  or  customs ;  as  his  British  biog 
rapher  says  with  a  tender  complacency  —  he  was 
"  exquisitely  and  consistently  provincial."  And 
we  say  —  thank  God,  he  guarded  sedulously  his 
Americanism  ;  nor  did  he  take  on  with  any  as 
siduity  the  "  er's  —  er's  "  of  Cockney-dom,  or  the 
dilettanteism  of  foreign  Capitals — with  which  so 
many  expatriated  Americans  have  latterly  bap 
tized  their  speech  and  their  souls. 

In  1857  Hawthorne  resigned  his  office  of  consul 
—  perhaps  weary  of  service,  perhaps  doubting  if 
the  political  skies  would  be  benign  under  the 
new  President  Buchanan.  The  emoluments  of 
the  office,  though  not  so  large  as  hoped  for,  had 
put  him  at  ease.  Mrs.  Hawthorne,  with  health 
disturbed  by  cool  British  fogs,  had  taken  a  winter 
ing  in  summer  latitudes.  There  had  been  jaunts 
to  London,  to  Scotland,  and  through  all  those 
green  ways  of  Warwickshire  which  so  delightfully 
freshened  the  pages  of  that  book  of  Our  Old 


HAWTHORNE  IN  ITALY.  255 

Home,  which  on  the  score  of  literary  texture  is 
among  the  fairest  and  daintiest  he  ever  wrote. 

On  a  cold,  sour  day  of  January  (1858),  he  ar 
rived  in  Rome,  with  his  family,  via  Paris  and 
Marseilles  ;  missing  greatly  the  "  comforts  "  which 
wrapped  him  in  English  homes ;  scarce  getting 
warmth  into  his  bones,  save  when  the  heavy, 
mat-like  curtain  at  the  door  of  St.  Peter's  flopped 
behind  him,  and  the  mild  airs  of  the  great  temple 
bathed  him  in  their  placid  serenities. 

Later  the  currents  of  his  blood  were  pleasantly 
stirred  by  the  infectious  jollities  of  the  Carnival ; 
and  still  further  stirred  when,  in  the  spring  (1858), 
he  encounters  the  romance-laden  winds  which 
blow  over  the  Florentine  valley ;  and  from  his 
eyrie  on  the  height  of  Bellosguardo,  he  looks 
athwart  the  Arno,  and  the  Brunelleschi  dome  to 
the  hills  by  Fiesole ;  and  out  of  his  crumbling 
square  tower  of  Montauto — a  little  way  southward 
from  the  Porto  Romano  —  filches  the  romantic  ma 
terial  for  his  new  story  of  Donatello.  As  the  sum 
mer  season  waned,  he  went  to  Rome  again,  where 
the  Campagna  fever  smote  one  of  the  dearest  of 
his  flock  —  a  new  and  bitter  experience  unfolding 


256       AMERICAN  LANDS  &»   LETTERS. 


for  him,  as  she  (the  eldest  of  his  daughters)  hov 
ers  between  life  and  death.  There  were  friends 
indeed  to  lend  their  sympathies  ;  for  he  met  the 


W.  W.  Story. 

Storys  at  Rome,  and  had  hobnobbed  over  and 
again  with  that  full-brained  poet,  architect,  sculp 
tor,  talker  —  who  had  graced  so  many  arts  'twas 
hard  to  tell  in  which  he  was  master.  General 
Pierce,  too,  taking  his  post-presidential  range  of 


HAWTHORNE  IN  ROME. 


257 


The  Trevi  Fountain,  Rome. 

travel,  had  brought  his  home-like  presence  into 
the  rooms  where  fever  brooded,  and  into  the  Roman 
neighborhood  where  the  beat  and  bubbling  of  the 
fountain  of  Trevi  throbbed  upon  the  air.  Brown 
ing  also,  with  his  worlds-man's  tact,  had  won 
upon  the  heart  of  Hawthorne  ;  and  so  had  that 
delicate  poetess  —  sharer  of  Browning's  home  — 
who  has  brightened  the  Casa-Guidi  windows  for 
all  who  love  Italy,  or  liberty,  or  poesy. 


258       AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

There  are  many  pleasant  hours  with  Motley  the 
historian,  on  a  balcony  which  overlooks  the  riot 
and  joyousness  of  a  Koman  Carnival  ;  and  in  the 
succeeding  spring  (1859)  he  fares  away  from  the 
great  city,  through  the  Ehone  Valley,  Switzer 
land,  and  Paris,  to  England. 

Here  he  devoted  himself  for  four  months  to 
the  re-writing  of  his  Marble  Faun  *— mostly  at  a 
little  watering-place  on  the  extreme  north-eastern 
shore  of  Yorkshire  ;  he  has  his  stay,  too,  at  Leam 
ington  and  Bath,  and  a  swift  whirl  of  "the 
season"  in  London.  Under  date  of  May  17, 
1860,  he  says  :  "  You  would  be  stricken  dumb 
to  see  how  quietly  I  accept  a  whole  string  of  in 
vitations,  and  what  is  more,  perform  my  engage 
ments  without  a  murmur." 

In  the  month  of  June  he  sailed  for  America ; 
and  with  the  opening  burst  of  a  New  England 
summer,  found  himself  again  at  the  "  Wayside  " 
in  Concord.  Rampant  weeds  were  growing  in 
the  little  garden  ;  the  clock-like  ministrations  of 

*  The  book  was  published  in  England  under  the  name  of 
Transformation  (which  he  greatly  disliked),  in  February, 
1860. 


HOME  AGAIN. 


259 


trained  English  servants  are  wanting ;    mayhap, 
too,  there  was  a  silent  bemoaning  of  the  lack  of 


Hawthorne  in  1862. 

From  a  photograph  taken  by  Brady,  in  Washington. 

those  English  domestic   appliances    (rare  then  in 
New   England   country   houses)    with   which   the 


260       AMERICAN  LANDS  &•   LETTERS. 

children  had  known  years  of  dalliance;  more 
than  all,  those  bodeful  political  mutterings  were 
stirring  the  air,  which  were  to  grow  in  volume 
until  the  placid  America  the  romancer  had 
known,  should  put  on,  and  wear  for  years,  the 
red  robes  of  war. 


Home,  Again  and  the  End. 

Kesidence  and  travel  in  England  had  quick 
ened  all  Hawthorne's  rural  susceptibilities.  No 
man  indeed,  howsoever  browbeaten  by  British 
bounce  or  arrogance,  can  come  away  from  a 
long  stay  in  lands  of  the  English,  but  the  thought 
of  their  tender  care  for  trees  and  lawns  and  all 
green  and  blooming  things,  will  sweeten  his 
memories  and  exalt  his  rural  instincts.  Haw 
thorne  made  no  exception  ;  he  would  have  strown, 
at  least,  a  handful  of  the  leafy  allurements  which 
had  beguiled  him  in  Warwickshire  or  Somerset 
about  the  narrow  enclosure  by  the  Wayside ;  he 
had  even  ordered  a  few  trees  and  shrubs  for  his 
plantations  from  abroad  ;  but  the  weeds  and  wild- 
ness  were  in  conquering  ranks.  Mrs.  Lathrop,  in 


CONCORD  HOME.  261 

her  pleasant  "Memories/'  speaks  pathetically  of 
the   "horrifying  delinquencies  of  our  single  ser- 


From  a  photograph  given  by  Hmuthorne  to  the  author  in  tht  Spring  of  1862.* 

vant;"  and  again    "we   did   not  learn    to   save 

*  Of  this  photograph  Hawthorne  wrote  :  * '  The  enclosed  is 
the  least  objectionable  of  half  a  dozen  from  which  I  select 
it — all  of  them  being  stern,  hard,  ungenial,  and,  moreover, 
somewhat  grayer  than  the  original." 


262       AMERICAN  LANDS  &•   LETTERS. 

money,  because  our  parents  could  not."  Their 
generous  but  disorderly  charities  forbade  —  would 
have  forbidden,  even  though  Consular  revenue  had 
been  doubled. 

The  quiet  of  Concord  with  its  idling  rivers  and 


Concord  River,  from  Nashawtuc  Hill. 

rounded  hills  has  much  that  is  Arcadian ;  yet  the 
deep  gravel  cuts  which  flank  the  railway,  and  its 
prevailing  growth  of  birch  and  of  pine  do  not 
carry  large  agricultural  promise  ;  nor  did  Haw 
thorne's  score  or  more  of  acres  tempt  him  to 
active  husbandry. 

Perhaps   the    reader    may   be    interested   in   a 


HA  WTHORNE'S  FARMING.  263 

paragraph  or  two  from  an  unpublished  letter  of 
the  romancer  relating  to  this  topic  —  dated  a  few 
years  after  his  return.  The  present  writer  had 
ventured  to  send  him  a  little  book  *  setting  forth 
some  of  his  own  experiences  of  farm  life.  After 
acknowledging  this  with  some  kindly  words  of 
praise  (of  which  he  was  never  niggard),  he  con 
tinues  : 

u  I  remember  long  ago  your  speaking  prospectively  of  a 
farm;  but  I  never  dreamed  of  your  being  really  much  more 
of  a  farmer  than  myself,  whose  efforts  in  that  line  only 
make  me  the  father  of  a  progeny  of  weeds  in  a  garden-patch. 
I  have  about  twenty-five  acres  of  land,  seventeen  of  which 
are  a  hill  of  sand  and  gravel,  wooded  with  birches,  locusts, 
and  pitch  pines,  and  apparently  incapable  of  any  other 
growth,  so  that  I  have  great  comfort  in  that  part  of  my  terri 
tory.  The  other  eight  acres  are  said  to  be  the  best  land  in 
Concord,  and  they  have  made  me  miserable,  and  would  soon 
have  ruined  me  if  I  had  not  determined  never  more  to  at 
tempt  raising  anything  from  them.  So  there  they  lie  along 
the  road-side,  within  their  broken  fence,  an  eyesore  to  me, 
and  a  laughing-stock  to  all  the  neighbors.  If  it  were  not  for 
the  difficulty  of  transportation  by  express  or  otherwise,  I 
would  thankfully  give  you  those  eight  acres." 

But   he  has  his  walks  and  his   fertile  musings 
*  My  Farm  of  Edgewood,  first  published  in  1863. 


«^<a^r    rtfl^.    &rz^ZZ>     ''    -4?  -^^  S 
V      /  / 

Facsimile  of  the  first  page  of  the  foregoing  Letter  from  Hawthorne. 


CONCORD  HOME.  265 

along  the  brow  of  that  pine-clad  hill  —  can  see 
thence  the  approaches  to  that  home,  upon  whose 
roof-top  he  has  built  a  clumsy  tower-chamber,* 
on  whose  inner  walls  he  has  inscribed  the  legend  : 
"  There  is  no  joy  but  calm."  Thither  he  can  scud 
for  shelter  if  too  much  of  peripatetic  philosophy 
impends;  but  he  always  welcomes  th^  tread  of 
Emerson  along  the  locust  walk  ;  and  is  often  stirred 
into  healthier  and  more  bracing  moods  by  the 
sharp,  staccato  utterances  of  that  keen  observer 
and  out-of-door  man,  Thoreau.  But  his  lifted 
chamber  is  not  after  all  the  tower  of  Montau- 
to  ;  and  there  were  delightful  fashions  of  growth 
in  green  Warwickshire  that  he  misses  on  the 
meadows  of  Concord.  What  wonder  if  seasons 
of  mal-aise  come  to  him,  now  that  the  beguiling 
European  experiences,  which  had  kindled  his 
manhood  into  bursts  of  mental  joyousness,  have 
passed  forever  from  his  grasp  ?  What  wonder  if 

*  u  I  really  was  not  so  much  to  blame  here  as  the  village 
carpenter,  who  took  the  matter  into  his  own  hands  and  pro 
duced  an  unimaginable  sort  of  thing,  instead  of  what  I 
asked  for.  If  it  would  only  burn  down !  But  I  have  no 
such  luck." — Hawthorne's  letter  of  April,  1862. 


266       AMERICAN  LANDS  &>   LETTERS. 

little  ailments  or  annoyances  put  —  every  year  — a 
heavier  drag  upon  his  march  along  the  wayside 
of  life  ?  What  wonder  if  his  imagination  is  be 
clouded  with  colors  more  and  more  murky  as  he 
wrestles  with  the  old  brain- webs  of  a  "  Dolliver" 
or  a  "  Septimius  Felton"  ? 

The  journeyings  of  years,  and  perhaps  the 
weeds  at  his  own  wayside,  gave  him  yearning  for 
new  and  home  travel. 

He  goes  southward,  with  his  kind,  jolly-spirited 
friend  Ticknor  to  cheer  and  guide  him.  Ticknor 
is  brought  back  by  the  undertakers  ;  *  Hawthorne 
follows  —  alone,  trying  to  be  strong  and  unmoved. 
Once  more  he  journeys  —  now  with  his  old  friend 
President  Pierce — his  voice  shaking  when  he  bids 
them  adieu  at  his  Concord  home. 

The  friends  go  northward  ;  and  on  the  18th  of 
May,  1864  (ten  days  after  the  great  Battle  of  the 
Wilderness),  reach  the  Pemigewassett  Inn,  in  the 
pretty  valley  through  which  a  New  Hampshire 
country  road  trends  toward  the  Franconia  Moun- 


*  Mr.  Ticknor  died  a  few  days  after  setting  out  upon  the 
journey,  in  Philadelphia  (April,  1864). 


HAWTHORNE'S  DEATH. 


267 


tains.  They  had  adjoining  rooms;  so,  twice  or 
thrice  in  the  night  Pierce  steps  to  the  bedside  of 
his  companion,  who  seems  sleeping  quietly  — very 
quietly.  No  change  ever  came  more  quietly  ;  no 
groans,  no  sighs,  no  conscious  pain  even  —  only 
the  gates  opened  —  for  this,  our  great  romancer, 
and  our  greatest  master  of  English  prose  —  and  he 
passed  through  by  night. 


Hawthorne's  Grave  at  Sleepy  Hollow,  Concord. 


CHAPTER  V. 

WE  lingered  long  in  our  last  chapter  —  but 
who  shall  venture  to  say  unduly — over 
the  career  of  that  master  who  put  a  Scarlet  Let 
ter  ineffaceably  upon  the  history  of  the  land. 
"We  traced  him  from  his  childish  home  in  the 
quaint  Salem  house  (still  standing)  to  the  wilds 
of  Sebago  Lake,  where  a  maternal  uncle  gave 
him  the  run  of  great  woods ;  and  thence  to  the 
near  college  of  Bowdoin,  where  the  suave  Dr. 
Allen,  of  the  Biographical  Dictionary,  presided, 
and  two  brothers  Abbott  found  the  Way  to  do 
Good;  where  also  Bridge  and  General  Pierce, 
in  their  young  days,  befriended  Hawthorne,  and 
where  the  Rev.  George  Cheever  learned  to  slash 
with  sharp  rhetoric  at  unbelievers,  slave-mongers 
and  Distillery  folk. 

Again  we  followed  the  Master  to  Salem,  and  to 

the  gauging  of   barrels  on  Boston  wharves ;  then 
268 


HAWTHORNE.  269 

that  pretty  episode  of  Brook  Farm  came,  where  a 
Countess  Ossoli  flashed  into  view,  and  that  pret 
tier  episode  of  love-making,  which  ended  with  the 
cooing  of  doves  in  an  "  Old  Manse  "  of  Concord. 
Next  came  another  Salem  experience,  when  the 
Master  scored  the  corridors  of  the  old  Custom 
house  with  portraits  of  hangers-on,  and  followed 
this  with  a  retreat  to  Lenox  woods,  where  Sedg- 
wicks  chirped  and  Herman  Melville  strode  mys 
tically  on  the  scene.  George  Hillard,  too,  brought 
sometimes  his  serenities  and  keen  tastes  thither 
ward  ;  and  later,  at  Concord  again,  in  company 
with  the  wise  Emerson  and  the  gracious  James  T. 
Fields,  he  buoyed  up  the  Master's  spirits  when 
they  drooped ;  and  all  gave  joint  huzza  when  the 
Blithedale  story-teller  sailed  away  for  England 
and  "  good  pay." 

"We  saw  him  there;  he  lingered  there  under 
the  mists  and  smoke  by  the  belfry  of  St.  Nicholas 
in  Liverpool ;  and  under  leafy  streets  in  Leam 
ington  ;  and  again  on  roads  in  Italy,  where  Story 
cracked  his  jokes  and  told  of  Roba  di  Roma;  and 
where  the  sweet  small  voice  of  Mrs.  Browning 
smote  upon  the  ear  of  reverent  listeners.  There- 


270       AMERICAN  LANDS  &-   LETTERS. 


after  came  the  sorrowful  waits  upon  Campagnan 
fever — the  return — the  small  Concord  make-shifts 

for  the  scenes  and 
verdure,  and  tower  of 
Bellosguardo  —  the 
sinking  spirits  — the 
little  vain  bursts  of 
home  travel  —  the 
poignant  pen,  eager 
but  trembling,  with 
the  ink  splashes  that 
only  half  figured  a 
Dr.  Dolliver — all  this 
put  out  of  sight  by 
the  entire  completed 
tale  of  Monte  Beni, 
where  four  figures 
reign. 

Only  four,  who  en 
ter   upon    the    first 

page  of  the  Marble  Faun,  and  never  vanish  till  the 
curtain  drops  on  that  great  gloom-haunted  back 
ground,  where  Roman  dirges  sound  and  Roman 
temples  and  tall  houses  block  the  soft  Italian 


Hilda's  Tower. 


A   NATURALIST.  271 

sunshine.  Virtually,  only  these  four  figures  — 
lovely  Hilda,  transplanted  from  New  England 
fields,  with  a  pearly  flash  of  Puritanism  playing 
on  her  forehead  ;  Kenyon  —  the  masculine  half  of 
Saxon  elements,  at  play  in  Etruscan  fields;  Mir 
iam —  all  a-glitter  with  jewels  of  beauty  and  the 
shimmer  of  some  mysterious  coronet,  flashing 
blood-red;  last,  Donatello  —  Arcadian,  graceful, 
bewitching,  with  an  engaging  ductility,  and  only 
such  little  glow  of  humanity  as  steals  upon  re 
flected  rays  from  the  blood-red  coronet  of  Miriam. 

A  Naturalist. 

In  my  report  of  those  last  days  of  Hawthorne 
at  Concord,  there  is  casual  mention  of  an  investi 
gating,  yet  much  younger,  man,  who  from  time  to 
time  found  welcome  at  the  Wayside.  He  was  of 
Concord  birth,  but  by  inheritance  he  united  the 
blood  of  a  Norman  ancestry  with  Puritan  sever 
ities,  and  also  Scottish  gumption  with  Quakerish 
stubbornness.  This  was  Henry  Thoreau  ;  *  his 

*  Henry  D.  Thoreau,  b.  1817;  d.  1862.  A  Week  on  Con 
cord  and  Merrimac  Rivers,  1845-47  ;  Waldcn,  1854.  Biog- 


272        AMERICAN    LANDS    fir-    LETTERS. 

father,  failing  in  other  means  of  livelihood,  had 
become  a  pencil  manufacturer;  in  this,  the  son 
joined  him  for  a  time,  but  having  learned  to  make 
pencils  better  than  anyone  else  could  make  them, 
he  lost  interest  in  the  craft.  So,  when  he  had 
learned  in  Walden  woods  to  live  upon  less  money 
than  other  men,  he  lost  interest  in  the  experi 
ment.  His  thought  ranged  above  money-making ; 
yet  he  was  keen-sighted,  lithe  as  an  Indian,  and 
almost  as  swart  and  hale.  In  many  points  he 
might  have  posed  for  Hawthorne's  Donatello, 
while  the  exuberance  and  force  of  his  love  for 
nature  would  have  almost  made  one  look  curiously 
for  fawn-tips  on  his  ears.  If  somewhat  Pagan 
in  his  belief,  he  was  not  Pagan  in  lassitudes. 
Withal  he  was  a  scholar — had  graduated  with 
good  rank  at  Harvard  —  was  apt,  and  specially 
appreciative  in  classic  ranges,  but  disposed  to  be 
jealous  and  contemptuous  of  that  side  of  classi 
cism  which  tended  to  pride  of  learning,  and  which 

raphics,  by  Wm.  Ellery  Charming  and  F  B.  Sanborn,  are 
marred  by  over-praise ;  Alger  (Solitude)  and  Lowell,  on  the 
other  hand,  in  their  biographic  mention  are  somewhat  prone 
to  detraction. 


HENRY  THOREAU. 


273 


UK, 


Henry  D.  Thoreau. 

From  a  crayon  drawing  by  Rowse. 


made  the  accomplishment  of  the  Sir  William  Tem 
ples  ;  yet,  if  a  cricket  chirped  in  his  ear,  as  he  scuf 
fled  with  his  hoe  in  his  bean-patch,  he  harked  back 
straight  to  the  Cicada  of  Anacreon,  like  a  Greek. 


18 


274       AMERICAN  LANDS  &•   LETTERS. 

Thoreau  is  probably  best  known  to  the  world  by 
that  curious  experience  of  his  in  Concord,  where 
he  built  his  own  house  under  the  pines  —  measur 
ing  costs  by  pennies,  illustrating  a  great  many  idle 


economies,  coquetting  with  the  birds,  having 
friendships  with  the  squirrels  and  woodchucks, 
living  abstemiously,  measuring  with  nicety  every 
depth  and  shallow  of  his  watery  domain  of  Wai- 
den — which  he  finds  deepest  where  the  diameters 


WALDEN  HOME.  275 

of  breadth  and  length  intersect.  This  seems  to  us 
not  a  great  discovery ;  yet,  observe  how  character 
istically  he  twists  it  into  solution  of  ethical  prob 
lems  : 

"  Such  a  rule  [of  the  two  diameters]  not  only  guides  toward 
the  sun  in  its  system  and  the  heart  in  man^  but  draws  lines 
through  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  aggregate  of  a  man's 
particular  daily  behaviors  and  waves  of  life,  into  his  coves 
and  inlets,  and  where  they  intersect  will  be  the  height  or 
depth  of  his  character." 

This  tempts  to  a  new  sounding  of  motives,  and 
to  a  question  —  if  the  mixing  of  Norman  blood 
with  English  Puritanism,  and  Scotch  covenanting 
sharpness  in  this  philosopher  of  the  woods,  may  not 
suggest  new  ways  of  measuring  the  shallows  and 
depths  of  the  composite  New  England  character? 
It  is  an  altogether  curious  figure  —  this  acute 
man  of  the  mixed  nativities,  and  with  the  rhythms 
of  such  as  Simonides  singing  in  his  ear  —  makes 
there,  upon  the  Walden  shores — giving  furtive 
"  tips  "  to  the  birds  and  the  squirrels  —  shrugging 
his  shoulders  contemptuously  at  any  buzz  of  civil 
ized  sounds,  and  on  the  alert  for  the  thunder  of 
some  falling  tree  or  the  creak  of  ice-cakes  which 
grind  out  their  chorus  to  cheer  his  solitude. 


276       AMERICAN  LANDS  6-   LETTERS. 

Reformer  and    Writer. 

But  he  tires  of  it,  and  goes  to  village  life  again  ; 
has  his  voyagings  up  and  down  the  Assabet  or  the 
Concord  among  the  rushes  and  overhanging  wild- 


Desk,  Bed,  and  Chair  used  in  the  Hut  at  Walden  Pond. 


Now 


of  the  Antiquarian  Society  of  Concord. 


vines — has  his  bouts  at  school-keeping — his  linger- 
ings,  and  listenings  at  the  Emerson  home  (where 
by  he  possibly  falls  into  certain  imitative  modes 
of  thought  or  talk  —  as  weaker  men  will  always 
plunge  unwittingly  into  the  foot-falls  of  stronger 


THOREAU  AS  REFORMER.  277 

ones  who  go  before  through  wastes) ;  he  lectures, 
too,  year  after  year,  there  in  Concord  and  other 
near  places  —  always  having  something  earnest 
and  piquant  to  say,  but  not  alluring  crowds  ;  mis 
doubting  always  what  the  world  calls  success,  and 
scorning  applause  as  the  perquisite  of  weak  men. 

Throughout  he  was  an  arch-reformer  ;  insistent 
upon  largest  liberties  in  home,  in  state,  in  church  ; 
setting  a  mart's  individuality  at  the  top  of  creeds 
and  law ;  going  to  jail  rather  than  pay  taxes  he 
thought  unjust ;  riotously  applausive  when  that 
stanchest  of  radicals  and  most  illogical  of  human 
itarians,  Ossawatomie  Brown,  bundled  his  pikes 
into  the  Virginia  mountains,  and  preached  his 
gospel  of  revolt ;  and  when  the  cruel  but  lawful 
and  logical  end  came  to  that  humane  furor  with 
the  drop  of  the  Charlestown  gallows,  it  stirred 
Tboreau,  as  it  did  many  another  perfervid  and 
waiting  soul,  into  those  resentments  which  ended 
in  a  desolating  and  renovating  war. 

One  can  hardly  know  this  author,  except  by 
reading  him  thoroughly,  up  and  down  and  across, 
in  every  light,  every  season,  every  labor.  The 
truths  of  nature  quiver  in  his  talk,  as  color  quivers 


278       AMERICAN  LANDS  &>   LETTERS. 

on  a  chameleon  ;  and  when  we  have  caught  the 
changing  tints  —  by  how  much  are  we  wiser  ? 
Full-paced  naturalists  tell  us  that  he  is  not  al 
ways  to  be  relied  upon  for  naming  of  common 
facts ;  and  the  uncommon  ones  in  his  story  are 
largely  so,  because  they  radiate  (for  the  time)  his 
shine  of  emotion,  of  impulse,  of  far-away  compari 
sons.  Yet  what  tender  particularity  in  his  Ex 
cursions  —  not  showing  us  great  wonders ;  no 
more  does  White  of  Selborne ;  yet  what  large 
country  love  and  yearning  !  "Tis  a  grandchild, 
telling  us  of  the  frosty  beard  and  the  quaking 
voice  of  tlie  grandpapa. 

How  true  is  that  snowy  foliage  of  his — "an 
swering  leaf  for  leaf  to  its  summer  dress  ! "  Even 
indoors  his  loving  observation  does  not  pause  ; 
but  — 

u  Upon  the  edge  of  the  melting  frost  of  the  window,  the 
needle-shaped  particles  are  bundled  together  so  as  to  re 
semble  fields  waving  with  grain,  or  shocks  rising  here  and 
there  from  the  stubble." — Excursions,  p.  67. 

TJioreau's  Later  Reputation. 
Unlike   many   book-making   folk,    this    swart, 
bumptious  man  has  grown  in  literary  stature  since 


THOREAV'S  QUALITIES.  279 

his  death ;  his  drawers  have  been  searched,  and 
cast-away  papers  brought  to  day.  Why  this  re 
newed  popularity  and  access  of  fame  ?  Not  by 
reason  of  newly  detected  graces  of  style  ;  not  for 
weight  of  his  dicta  about  morals,  manners,  letters; 
there  are  safer  guides  in  all  these.  But  there  is 


Thoreau's  Flute,  Spyglass,  and  Copy  of  Wilson's 
Ornithology. 

a  new-kindled  welcome  for  the  independence,  the 
tender  particularity,  and  the  outspokenness  of 
this  journal-maker. 

If  asked  for  a  first-rate  essayist,  nobody  would 
name  Thoreau ;  if  a  poet,  not  Thoreau ;  if  a 
scientist,  not  Thoreau;  if  a  political  sage,  not 
Thoreau  ;  if  a  historian  of  small  socialities  and  of 
town  affairs,  again  not  Thoreau.  Yet  we  read 


280       AMERICAN  LANDS  <Sr*   LETTERS. 

him — with  zest,  though  he  is  sometimes  prosy,  some 
times  overlong  and  tedious  ;  but  always  —  Thoreau. 

The  same  unique  interest  belongs  to  the  blare  of 
Whitman,  to  the  crookedest  things  of  Browning, 
to  Oarlyle  at  his  ugliest.  These  men  do  not  train 
in  bands ;  they  are  not  safest  of  critics  ;  they  do 
not  get  set  up  as  exemplars  in  young  ladies'  col 
leges  ;  they  do  not  adorn  the  anthologies  of  Miss 
Prim  and  of  teachers.  But  they  are  alive ;  they 
think  ;  they  break  rules  —  but  they  also  break 
tedium,  and  stupid  meandering  in  the  light  of  my 
lady's  grammatic  enforcements.  They  have  pulse 
and  a  buoyant  life,  that  engages. 

There  is  good  appetite  for  a  man's  speech  who 
has  the  courage  to  be  himself.  We  love  to  lay  hold 
of  his  nodosities  and  angularities,  when  he  makes 
no  concealment  and  does  not  weary  and  embrute 
himself  for  half  his  life  in  trying  to  cover  them 
up  or  to  round  them  down.  That  a  man  should 
take  to  a  hut  and  give  over  bath-tubs,  confits, 
prim  clothes,  and  conventionalism,  is  not  in  itself 
matter  of  interest  or  a  tone  of  conduct  that  would 
pique  curiosity  or  study ;  but  that  he  should  do 
this  honestly,  straightforwardly,  consistently,  in 


THOREAU. 


281 


the  evolution  of  a  system  of  what  he  reckons 
humane  conduct  of  life  —  this  makes  the  matter 
curious  and  entertaining.  It  approaches  (in  a 
humble  way,  indeed)  that  other  honest  human 


Thoreau's  Grave. 

experience,  justified  by  its  story,  which  was  set 
forth  many  generations  ago  in  Gascony,  by  the 
Sieur  Michel  de  Montaigne. 

But  I  cannot  linger  longer  with  the  sage  of 
Walden,  who  sang  and  philosophized,  and  played 
the  flute  and  broke  the  laws.  Emerson  has  said 


282       AMERICAN  LANDS  6-   LETTERS. 

of  him  at  his  funeral  (1862),  in  sweet  and  tender 
words  of  consecration  —  better  worth  than  the 
heaped-up  praises  of  a  biographer — "Wherever 
there  is  knowledge,  wherever  there  Js  virtue, 
wherever  there  is  beauty,  he  will  find  a  home." 

A  Poet's  Youth. 

Among  those  we  encountered  at  Bowdoin  Col 
lege  in  the  twenties  was  a  ruddy- faced,  engaging 
lad  *  who  came  from  Portland  —  who  was  born  in 
a  great  house,  still  standing  on  the  edge  of  the 
water,  and  who  had  by  nature  poetic  graces  and 
aptitudes,  and  grew  to  a  love  of  languages,  and 
of  their  billowy  flow  from  all  tongues.  In  his 
early  teens  some  of  his  verse  finds  lodgement  in 
the  corners  of  Portland  journals  ;  he  stands  fairly 
in  his  class,  nourishing  very  ambitious  hopes ; 
"  I  will  be  eminent  in  something/7  he  writes  to 
his  father  (date  of  1824),  and  pleads  for  a  year  of 

*  Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow,  b.  1807 ;  d.  1882.  Voices 
of  the  Night,  1839;  Evangeline,  1847;  Hiawatha,  1853; 
Dante,  1867-70 ;  Biography,  mainly  made  up  of  extracts 
from  his  letters  and  journals  (by  Samuel  Longfellow),  2 
vols.,  8vo,  1886,  and  Final  Memorials,  1  vol.,  1887. 


LONGFELLOW.  283 

post-graduate  study  at  Harvard,   where  he  says 
"$183  per  annum"  will  pay  all  expenses.* 

The  father,  who  is  a  discreet  man  of  high  repu 
tation —  though  he  looks  askance  at  the  "  pretty 


House  in  Portland,  Me.,  in  which  Longfellow  was  Born. 

poems  " — does  favor  the  further  graduate  course  ; 
all  the  more  when  the  authorities  at  Bowdoin  hint 
at  a  "chair  of  modern  languages"  for  the  son, 
if  he  will  equip  himself  by  a  year  or  two  of  study 
abroad. 

*  Biography,  vol.  i. ,  p.  59. 


284       AMERICAN  LANDS  6-   LETTERS. 

This  opened  his  career ;  in  May,  1825,  he  set 
off  for  New  York,  to  take  ship  for  Europe.  Per 
haps  the  coach  went  by  the  Colonial  Tavern  at 
Sudbury  —  who  knows  ?  Certainly  he  went  by 
Northampton,  where  the  master  of  the  Bound 
Hill  school  gave  him  letters ;  thence  to  Albany 
—  a  curious  up-country  divergence  !  —  perhaps  to 
have  the  delights  of  that  sail  down  the  Hudson. 
His  ship  is  delayed ;  so  he  coaches  to  Philadelphia, 
where  he  catches  one  glimpse  of  that  ancient 
hospital,  under  whose  roof,  twenty  years  later,  he 
brings  about  the  last  sad  meeting  of  Gabriel  and 
Evangeline. 

We  can  fancy  what  that  European  trip  may 
have  been  for  a  youth  of  nineteen — full  of  poetic 
fervors — loving  gayeties — rusticating  at  Auteuil — 
meeting  Cooper  and  Lafayette  in  Paris  —  supping 
with  Washington  Irving  and  Alexander  Everett 
in  Madrid — dancing  with  Cordovan  girls — linger 
ing  in  Spain  for  months,  and  wintering  upon  the 
Piazza  Santa  Maria  Novella  at  Florence. 

For  three  years  it  is  all  a  holiday  ;  yet  he  does 
not  forget  his  task-work  or  his  ambitions  ;  Outre- 
mer  is  simmering  in  his  thought ;  and  with  its 


LONGFELLOW.  285 

pretty  podrida  of  old  tales,  dashes  of  senti 
ment,  glowing  descriptions  (all  set  aglow  by 
memories  of  Geoffrey  Crayon,  of  Sterne's  Jour 
ney,  and  of  CJiilde  Harold),  does  not  have  final 
outcome  in  book  form  until  some  years  after  his 
return.* 

In  1828  he  is  in  Venice  —  "  most  wonderful 
city ; "  a  twelvemonth  later  at  Dresden  and  Got- 
tingen,  and  in  the  same  year  returns  to  Maine, 
where  he  is  Professor  at  Bowdoin ;  and  in  1831  he 
is  wived  and  domiciled  in  a  house  of  Brunswick. 
But  the  horizon  seems  small  there  for  a  young 
man  of  his  ambitions ;  and  at  a  hint  from  Presi 
dent  Quincy  that  his  name  has  been  favorably 
considered  for  the  Professorship  of  Modern  Lan 
guages  at  Harvard  (from  which  George  Ticknor 
is  about  to  retire),  he  gives  up  his  place  at  Bow 
doin  (1835)  and  sails  again  over  seas  to  equip 
himself  with  a  knowledge  of  the  northern  lan 
guages  of  Europe. 

Then  comes  a  rich  burst  of  Scandinavian  travel, 
among  the  drooping  firs,  and  the  "white-haired 

*  First  number  issued  in  1833 ;  second  in  1834 ;  in  com 
pleted  book  form  (Harpers),  1835. 


286       AMERICAN  LANDS  &-   LETTERS. 

boys ; "  this  fills  the  summer,  and  in  November 
his  young  wife  dies  in  Kotterdam.  "  His  house 
hold  gods  were  broken."  But  there  came  consol 
ing  travel  up  and  down  the  Khine'and  in  the 
shadows  of  the  Swiss  mountains.  And  upon  the 
very  fore-front  of  that  Romance  (of  Hyperion) 
over  whose  melancholies  his  spirit  is  brooding  — 
to  wipe  out  sorrows  of  his  own  —  stand  recorded 
those  words  of  a  German  master  he  loved  : 
"  Look  not  mournfully  into  the  Past.  It 
comes  not  back  again.  Wisely  improve  the 
Present." 

Those  who  read  Hyperion  in  their  young  days 
(it  first  appeared  in  1839)  will  remember  with 
something  like  a  thrill.,  how,  amid  its  lesser 
charms  of  laughing  vineyards,  mountain  pictures, 
rollicking  student  songs,  and  tender,  sorrowful 
musings,  there  gleamed  now  and  then  across  its 
pages  (as  when  the  serene  Mary  Ashburton  ap 
pears)  the  glow  of  a  stronger,  purer  light, 
promising  calm  and  rest  !  Yet  this  light  van 
ishes  as  it  came,  leaving  the  hero  Paul  Flemming 
wrapt  in  gloorn. 


LONGFELLOW. 


287 


A  Harvard  Professor. 

In   December   of   1836   Longfellow   was   estab 
lished   in  Cambridge.     Judge  Story  was   still   in 
the  law   school  ; 
Charles   Sumner 
came  thither   to 
lecture  ;   George 
Hillard   was   at 
hand  for  evening 
talks  or  smokes ; 
so  was   that  j  oi 
liest  of  Greek 
professors,    Fel- 
t  o  n ,    with    wit 
always  sparkling 
through    his 
glasses.      Bowen 
and    Sparks    are 
grubbing   indus 
triously   at   their   documentary  work ;   both  the 
older    and    younger    Wares    had    their    pleasant 
preachments  ;   poor  Follen  —  who  perished  in  a 
burning  Sound  steamer   (Lexington)   four  years 


Professor,  later  President,  Felton, 
of  Harvard. 


288       AMERICAN  LANDS  <S-   LETTERS. 

later  —  could  give  the  young  professor  "  points" 
in  German  ;  and  the  elderly  and  dignified  Wash 
ington  Allston  was  still  residing  at  the  "  Port/' 
able  and  willing  to  compare  notes  about  the 
Laocoon  and  the  charms  of  the  Pitti  palace. 

The  next  year  (1837)  he  rents  two  chambers  in 
that  famous  Craigie  House  (where  he  died)  ;  his 
lectures  are  popular  ;  his  spirits  jubilant  ;  his 
health  excellent  ;  his  expectations  all  of  the 
rosiest.  Bright  poems  from  his  pen,  with  a 
fresh  accent,  find  their  way  into  journals  and 
annuals  far  and  near.  Chief  est  among  these  are 
those  tender  and  solemn-sounding  Voices  of  the 
Night  which  in  the  year  1839  were  assembled  in 
a  little  drab-colored  volume  that  to-day  stands  on 
my  shelves,  and  was  bought  upon  its  issue,  with 
admiring  zest,  in  Sophomore  days  at  Yale. 

That  book  had  great  vogue  with  young  stu 
dents,  and  its 


TUN'  TToXvTTOVWV  /?/OOT(OV 

caught  a  gay  scansion  from  many  an  enthusiast 
who  was  not  given  to  Greek  in  general.  Perhaps 
there  was  not  the  light  of  any  new  fire  in  those 


HYPERION.  289 

beguiling  verses.  If  Noah  Webster  had  put  the 
thoughts  shrined  in  them  into  the  sturdy  prose 
with  which  he  told  about  the  "  Farmer  and  the 
Boy  Who  Stole  His  Apples,"  they  would  have 
proved  blank  shots.  The  wording  and  the  method 
made  the  brilliancy  and  the  barb.  Consider  for 
a  moment  what  would  have  become  of  Chaucer's 
daintiest  tales  if  a  Noah  Webster  had  dealt  them 
out  with  his  economy  of  phrase ;  or,  who  would 
watch  for  the  stars  shooting  athwart  Heaven  if 
they  carried  in  their  trail  only  the  dull  tints  of 
meteoric  iron  ? 

It  was  counted  not  a  little  remarkable  by  boys 
in  other  colleges  —  that  a  professor  on  the  banks 
of  the  Charles,  who  could,  and  did,  talk  learnedly 
about  Italian  grammar,  should  yet  stoop  to  the 
brilliant  tracery  (in  verse)  of  the  Footsteps  of  the 
Angels,  and  splice  out  his  Hyperion  with  rollick 
ing  songs  about  the  "Leathery  Herr  Papa"  — 
while  we  were  following  up  our  great  officials  in 
"  Day  on  the  Will,"  or  a  pretty  problem  in  Alge 
bra  !  What  wonder  if  there  should  come  about 
a  literary  florescence  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 

Washington  Elm,  at  Cambridge,  which  did  not 
19 


290       AMERICAN  LANDS   &*  LETTERS. 

make  gay  the  soberer  lands  and  Division-rooms  to 
the  southward  ? 

In  all  these  years  of  his  earlier  Harvard  profess 
orship,  Longfellow  is  full  of  his  Academic  and 
literary  industries  —  keeping  his  enthusiastic 
students  abreast  of  him  in  the  march  over  edu 
cational  courses  and  busy  with  romance  and  poem 
—  so  busy  and  so  worn  that  he  is  compelled  to 
take  a  run,  in  1842,  to  the  baths  of  Marienburg, 
in  Germany.  From  this  trip  he  brings  back  that 
high-flying  marker  of  the  Belfry  of  Bruges,  also 
the  so-called  "  Slavery  Poems,"  and  sundry  notes 
forecasting  his  Trilogy  of  Christus. 

In  1843  he  married  the  daughter  of  an  esteemed 
and  wealthy  merchant  of  Boston.  Thencefor 
ward  the  Craigie  House,  with  its  Washington 
memories  and  its  outlying  green  fields,  stretching 
to  the  Charles  River,  became  the  poet's  permanent 
home — notable  for  its  tasteful  equipments  and  for 
those  gracious  hospitalities  which  for  so  many 
years  made  all  its  doors  and  windows  beam  with 
summery  welcomes.  There  were  those  who 
thought  they  saw  in  the  new  and  dignified 
mistress  of  this  home  a  likeness  to  the  shadowy, 


LONGFELLOW.  293 

elusive,  graceful   figure  of  that  "Mary  Ashbur- 
ton,"  which  had  flitted  coyly  over  some  of  the 


Mrs.  Longfellow. 

From  a  reproduction  oj  Rowse's  crayon  portrait.* 

tenderer  pages  of  Hyperion  —  perhaps  their  sus 
picions  may  have  been  well  grounded. 


*  In  the  Life  of  Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow.     Hough- 
ton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 


294       AMERICAN  LANDS  &>  LETTERS. 

Later  Work  and  Years. 

There  comes  another  swift  trip  to  Europe  for 
this  poet,  on  whom  Fortune  would  seem  to  have 
showered  its  favors.  Lesser  poems,  such  as  the 
"Village  Blacksmith/'  or  the  "Skeleton  in 
Armor,"  make  their  winning  assonance  heard 
from  time  to  time  ;  and  in  1847  comes  the  larger 
music  of  Evangeline,  in  which  he  sweeps  on 

* 

broad  cgesural,  hexameter  pinions,  from  the  fir- 
fretted  valleys  of  Acadia  to  the  lazy,  languorous 
tides  which  surge  silently  through  the  bayous  of 
Louisiana. 

There  was  an  outcry  at  first  —  that  this  poem 
showed  classic  affectation ;  but  the  beauty  and  the 
pathos  carried  the  heroine  and  the  metre  into  all 
hearts  and  homes  in  all  English-speaking  lands. 
The  Hiawatha  came  later,  but  not  by  many  years ; 
and  this  again  called  out  the  shrill  salute  of  a 
good  many  of  those  critics  who  "shy"  at  any 
divergence  from  the  conventionalities  by  which 
their  schools  are  governed,  and  who  took  captious 
exceptions  to  a  metre  that  was  strange ;  but  the 
laughing  waters  of  Minnehaha  and  the  pretty 


LONGFELLOW. 


295 


Longfellow  at  the  Age  of  Forty-four. 

From  an  engraving  by  W.  H.  Mote,  made  in  London,  in  1851. 

legendary  texture  of  this  Indian  poem  have  car 
ried  its  galloping  trochaic  measure  into  all  cul 
tivated  American  households.  Hiawatha  did 


296       AMERICAN  LANDS  fr   LETTERS. 

not  appear,  however  (1855),  until  its  author  had 
given  over  his  labors  as  a  teacher,  and  was  resting 
upon  the  laurels  which  had  grown  all  round  that 
Cambridge  home.  The  pretty  tale  of  Kavan- 
agh,  of  earlier  date,  ranked  fairly  with  his  other 
ventures  in  the  field  of  prose  fiction — all  of  them 
wearing  the  air  of  poems  gone  astray  —  bereft  of 
their  rhythmic  robes,  and  showing  a  lack  of  the 
brawn  and  virility  which  we  ordinarily  associate 
with  the  homely  trousers  of  prose. 

After  his  retirement  from  the  Chair  of  Modern 
Languages  (to  which  Lowell  had  been  named  suc 
cessor,  1855),  under  the  ceaseless  labors  of  which 
Longfellow  had  grown  restive,  he  could  give  more 
time  and  an  unburdened  conscience  to  his  Chris 
tian  Trilogy  and  to  his  dealings  with  Dante. 
There  was  occasional  high  disport,  too  —  as  of  a 
boy  loose  from  school  —  in  such  playful  fancies 
as  that  of  Miles  Standish  and  his  courtship,  and 
that  later  engarlanding  of  tales  which  he  wove 
together  about  the  Old  Sudbury  Inn.  It  was  a 
delightful  leap  away  from  things  academic,  and 
admitted  of  that  frolic — of  wintry  flame— of  love 
notes,  and  of  legendary  magic,  which  put  this 


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298       AMERICAN  LANDS   &>    LETTERS. 

bundle  of  enkindling  stories  to  the  illumination 
of  many  a  fireside  circle.  They  may  indeed,  and 

will  —  always,   I   think 

—  call  to  mind  certain 
other  Canterbury  Tales 

—  which  is  a  pity  !    The 
thrush    may   and    does 
sing   delightfully ;    but 
if   the   memory   of    the 
joyous,  rollicking  roun 
delay  of    the    Bob  -  o'  - 
Lincoln    obtrudes     be 
tween    the   notes  —  'tis 
bad  for  the  thrush.     As 
for  the  Opera  magna  — 
as  he  counted  them,  it 
is  not  needful  .to  speak  : 

the  Christus,  with  its  Golden  Legend,  will  always 
be  valued  for  its  scholarly  ranges  and  for  its 
pleasantly  recurring  poetic  savors.  It  hardly 
seems  up  to  the  full  score  of  his  purpose  or  of  his 
ambitions  ;  monkish  ways  are  laid  down  tenderly, 
as  they  wended  through  mediaeval  wastes  ;  and 
so  are  Christ- ways  of  later  and  lightsomer  times  : 


H.  W.  Longfellow. 

Front  a  photograph  in  the  collection 
of  Mr.  Peter  Gilsey. 


LONGFELLOW'S  DANTE.  301 

but  there  is  no  careering  blast  of  Divine  wind 
sweeping  through  the  highways  all,  and  clearing 
them  of  putrescent  dusts. 

For  kindred  reasons  I  cannot  share  in  many 
of  the  higher  estimates  which  have  been  placed 
upon  the  poet's  Dantean  labors.  Scholarship,  lov 
ing  care,  and  conscientious  study  are  lavished  in 
abundance ;  lingual  graces  are  not  lacking ;  nor 
technical  power  to  match  measure  for  measure. 
But  back  of  all  there  seems  to  be  large  want  of 
effective  kinship,  in  this  kindly,  serene,  studious — 
yet  joyous  New  Englander — with  that  intense,  sol 
dierly,  deep-thoughted  Italian  —  whose  Beatrice 
was  a  rich,  swift  dream  of  his  youth,  and  Flor 
ence,  the  fair  city,  with  its  hopes  and  splendors,  a 
dream  of  all  his  years.  It  was  not  for  the  grace 
ful  scholar  and  the  meditative  master  of  Cam 
bridge  life  to  march  with  a  tread  that  should 
echo  afar,  and  with  a  clang  of  armor  that  might 
shake  the  walls  of  Erebus,  into  the  shades  where 
dwell  the  Blessed  and  the  Damned.  Not  for  him 
to  court  those  solemn  meetings  with  the  august 
dead,  or  with  the  great  criminals  seething  in  the 
gulf  of  torments  and  telling  of  their  woes  and 


302       AMERICAN  LANDS  &>   LETTERS. 

wickedness.  In  short,  Dante  was  quite  other  than 
Longfellow  —  so  largely  other,  and  different,  that 
the  delicate  verse  of  the  latter  seems  to  me  to  glide 
over  the  passionate,  divinely  wrought  lines  of  the 
Italian,  as  a  skater  glides  over  ice — nowhere  cut 
ting  to  the  depths  —  nowhere  breaking  through 
the  rhetorical  crust,  under  which  the  floods  riot 
and  writhe. 

But  why  make  ungracious  comparisons  ?  The 
maker  of  an  Inferno  is  maker  of  an  epoch  ;  and 
this  Cambridge  poet  of  ours  who  tells  deft  stories 
of  the  old  Sudbury  Inn,  and  measures  in  beguiling 
and  unmatchable  strain  the  blessings  of  "  Resig 
nation/'  and  who,  arm-in-arm  with  an  idealized 
Evangeline,  traverses  the  land  from  end  to  end, 
has  thereby  lifted  the  weight  of  sorrow  from  so 
many  grieving  ones,  and  put  such  a  lifting  and 
consoling  joyousness  into  the  spirits  of  so  many 
thousands,  that  we  call  down  benisons  on  him  and 
revere  his  name  and  his  memory. 

It  was  a  placid  and  serene  life  that  the  poet 
lived ;  he  had  the  love  and  respect  of  pupils 
whenever  and  wherever  he  taught ;  his  friends 
were  multiplied  year  by  year ;  only  once  —  in 


H.  W.  Longfellow. 


WHITTIER.  305 

Poe's  uncanny  day,  did  he  suffer  from  the  stabs  of 
ungracious  criticism ;  the  toils  of  poverty  or  the 
harrowing  constraints  of  narrowed  means  never 
wrapt  him  in  ;  always  that  wide,  generous  home 
was  his  own  —  always  open  to  hospitalities  that 
kindled  in  him  new  vigor.  Only  once  a  grief 
burst  upon  him  which  was  without  its  nepenthe  ; 
'twas  when  the  benign  womanly  presence  which 
had  blessed  his  heart  and  his  household  was  swept 
away,  before  his  very  eyes,  and  his  unavailing  strug 
gles — in  a  cloud  of  fire  and  smoke — into  darkness  ! 
A  world  of  readers,  far  and  near,  shared  in 
that  grief.  And  when  the  labors,  whose  pursuit 
mitigated  and  assuaged  the  great  sorrow,  were 
done,  and  he,  too,  passed  away,  there  were  thou 
sands,  both  in  America  and  in  England,  who  felt, 
with  a  sinking  of  the  heart,  that  a  good  friend 
and  a  melodious  singer  had  gone. 

Another  Neio  Englander. 

Another,  yet  of  a  different  strain  and  mould, 
was  that  poet  *  of  Maud  Muller  and  many  other 

*  John  G.  Whittier,  b.  1807 ;  d.  1894.     Legends  of  New 
England   (first  book),  1831;  Songs  of  Labor,    1850;  Snow 
20 


3o6       AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

unforgetable  stories,  who  was  born  in  that  angle  of 
Massachusetts  where  the  Merrimac,  weary  of  its 
toil  among  spindles,  finds  its  way,  near  the  old 
town  of  Newburyport,  into  the  sea.  The  farm  to 


Whittier's  Birthplace,  East  Haverhill,  Mass. 

whose  lands  and  labors  he  was  heir,  lay  in  the 
town  of  Haverhill,  along  a  pretty  stream  which 
was  tributary  to  the  Merrimac,  and  which  he  has 
photographed  in  lines  that  can  never  lose  color  : 

Bound,  1866;  Complete  Works,  1888;  Life,  by  Underwood, 
and  fuller  biography  by  S.  T.  Pickard,  2  vols.,  1894. 


WHITTIER.  307 

u  Woodsy  and  wild  and  lonesome 

The  swift  stream  wound  away, 
Through  birches  and  scarlet  maples, 
Flashing  in  foam  and  spray." 

From  the  hills  which  he  knew  in  his  childhood 
he  could  see  in  fair  weather  Agamenticus  and 
Monadnock  to  the  north,  and  on  the  east  the 
glimmer  of  the  ocean,  from  Salisbury  beach  to  the 
rocks  of  Cape  Anne. 

Whittier  as  a  lad  was  tall,  but  not  over-strong, 
with  large  eyes,  deep  set  in  their  orbits  and  full  of 
expression.  Those  eyes  never  ceased  to  challenge 
attention,  and  could  of  themselves  question  one  or 
make  reply.  His  boyish  experiences  taught  him 
of  all  farm  labors  ;  he  could  milk  the  cows,  or  fell 
trees,  or  cradle  grain.  His  school  opportunities 
were  small,  but  he  grappled  them  with  a  rare 
persistence.  The  strong  Quaker  strain  of  blood 
in  him  brought  with  it  a  love  for  straightforward 
ness,  for  plainness  and  simplicity  of  speech  and 
conduct,  which  he  never  outgrew  :  but  —  what 
was  more  rarely  a  product  of  Quakerism  —  there 
was  born  in  him  an  instinct  for  rhyme  and  poetic 
illuminations  of  thought,  which  broke  out  of  him 


3o8       AMERICAN  LANDS  &  LETTERS. 

as  easily  as  the  dapples  of  sun  and  shadow  broke 
upon  the  Powow  River.  He  was  humane,  too ; 
Burns's  field-mouse  touched  him  as  tenderly  as 
the  Scotsman's  rhythm  ;  all  suffering  things  and 
all  captives  made  quick  appeal  to  him,  and  he 


Whittier's  House  at  Danvers,  Mass. 

wreaked  their  woes  in  lines  that  always  carried 
flavors  of  New  England  woods  and  waters. 

Some  of  these  lines  catch  the  attention  of 
Garrison,  the  arch  agitator,  only  two  or  three 
years  his  senior,  who  goes  to  visit  him  among  his 
cows  —  and  gives  to  him  the  earliest  of  those  en- 


NEW-ENGLAWD  WEEKLY 


HARTFORD,   CON.  MONDAY,  .ITJI/V  26.  IflSO. 


HAVMEK.J&  PHELPS, 

./!».  J(.r ."»«... 
I   G    WHITTIER.  EHITOW. 

L™s~T*'^n*i**V?r'.-.'«!i 


woaM— (Jirded   with  pridT'Tnd 

nd  callous,  and  selfish,  aod 
pirit    insensibly   took  the   hue 


THE  REVIEW. 


iillh  of   her  affection.      He  cair 
not   back  lo  fulfil  the  ,ow  which  he  ba 
plighted. 
Slowly  and  painfully  the  knowledge  i 


;  FORSAKEN  GIRL. 


If  lh«r«  ii  any  .el  which  dewnn  Jeep 
and  bitle,  condemnation,  il  i.  that  of  ..i. 
t.rf  with  Iht  ii,«flintll«|iriol  woman's 
.fed ion.  The  [.m,l.  heart  m.7  I*  com- 
pared  to  a  delicate  harp— o»er  which  Ihe 
breathing)  of  early  affection  wander,  until 
e«K  tender  chord  ii  awakened  to  tonei  of 


f  realil;      There 


.!    :li 


nd  une.ca.ible  .i 
a.  ooe   bum  of   . 
orerDow    of   that    fountain    of   affliction 
which  quenches  the  last  ray  of  hope  in  i  be 

he  struggle  was  over,  and  she  gated  stead. 


harp  if  a  clian-e  pax  o«r  the  lo.e  which 


Ihe  rtaling  place  of  Ihole  who  hare  (one 


as  just  letting  behind  a  long  line  of  blue 
nd  undulating  hilli.toucbing  their  I.I  sum- 
Ih  .  radiance  like  Ihe  halo  which 


ure  of  greennev  and  blossom.  As 
reached  Ihe  quiet  and  secluded  dw 
I  Ihe  once  happy  Emily-l  fouod  toe 
oor  of  the  little  parlour  thrown  open  , 
nd.  female  .oiceof  >  twerlnett,  which 
could  hardly  he  said  to  belong  lo  Earth, 


genllett  viiilalioi  of  the  Zepbjrr.      Ir.vol- 


.«t  if  «  be  Mr,  .  dre.ra-lhe  unreal  im- 
.,.r.  of  f.ncr-I  pr.,0od,tb.l  I  ...J 
M»r  awaken  from  the  beauli'ul  ileluiicn. 
I  h...  been  Ihii  e'ening  by  Ihe  gra« 
*f  Emily.  II  hai.plaie,  while  tombstone 
half  hidden  hy  nowen.and  you  Bay  rei< 
it.  mournful  epilaph  in  Ihe  cleat  moon 


(istpaiai.*.  Tht  Ibjecl  of  her  lo.e  i 
proud  and  way  w.rif  be»e— whose  bl 
17  spirit  K.er  ..I...J  rr.«  its  bat 


Of  .11  ib  hidden  .V vpalhufl. 


Of  hrijhter  «j*«  »nd  e!ow«r  f«fl»— 


.(fcbt 


lik-lbeh.rln.|e,  o 
h«j>.-lhe  chuj.  .f 


^^ 


Many  there  are,  doublleis. 
' 


ESESs&szSiSst, 


, 

TbMe  who  anticipate  effects  so  important, 
from  causesso  inadequate,  should  recoil. 
not  only  toe  Client,  but   the  inTeleracy 
the  d>e.s«.     Such  a  change  of  opinion  a. 


are,  doublleis.  w 
fniilleuare   all  attempts  lo 

promote  concord  amonesl  r  . 

bean  it.  andever  will  be.  Ihe  slave  of  the 

Fac-simile  of  a  Portion  of  the  First  Page  of  the  New  Eng 
land  Weekly  Review. 

Front  the  collection  «./  the  Connecticut  Historical  Society  o/  Hartjord. 
309 


3io      AMERICAN  LANDS   &  LETTERS. 

couragements  which  pave  the  way  to  an  ardent 
and  life-long  friendship.  The  Quaker  farm-boy 
—  earnest  to  multiply  all  helps  for  a  better 
schooling  —  has  also  his  shoe-making  experience ; 
in  which  the  measured  beat  upon  the  lap-stone 
is  balanced  and  lightened  by  a  beat  of  trochaic 
measures  and  song.  There  is  apprenticeship, 
moreover,  to  the  printing  craft;  but  the  "compos 
ing-stick  "  in  his  hand  always  lags  behind  the 
composing-stick  in  his  thought.  His  work  is 
known  and  welcomed  in  all  the  local  journals  ;  it 
has  wandered  even  as  far  as  Hartford,  where  that 
wit,  George  D.  Prentice  —  in  those  days  managing 
the  New  England  Review —  has  pounced  upon 
the  Quaker  poet  as  a  good  successor  to  himself, 
when  he  files  away  to  enter  upon  his  Kentucky 
career. 

In  1830-31,  therefore,  "Whittier  is  virtual 
editor  of  that  Hartford  weekly ;  and  I  can  recall 
distinctly  how,  in  those  years  (when  the  present 
writer  was  a  fledgling-pupil  at  a  country  school 
fifteen  miles  away  from  the  tidy  Connecticut  capi 
tal)  there  was  a  close  fingering  of  the  goods  — 
journals,  raisins,  and  candies — which  an  itinerant 


WHITTIER  AS  EDITOR. 


huckster  brought  every  Saturday  afternoon  into 
the  school -yard  —  for  a  possible  story  or  poem  by 
«  J.  G.  W.!"  A  year  or  two  later  we  find  Whit- 
tier  returned  to  his  old  home,  shouldering  up  the 
industrial  exigencies  of  the  farm  —  his  father  be 
ing  dead  —  but 
still  illuminat 
ing  the  news 
paper  columns 
with  the  bright 
outcome  of  his 
wakeful  muse. 

He  has  also 
a  quasi  entry 
upon  politics ; 
is  twice  a  mem 
ber  of  the  Mas 
sachusetts  Leg 
islature  ;  is  stim- 


Caleb  Gushing. 

From  a  Photograph  taken  in  1870. 


ulated  to  vigor 
ous  political  plotting  ;  has  large  faith  in  his  lobby 
ing  capacity ;  is  even  talked  of  as  possible  member 
of  Congress.     He  is  for  some  time  lie  with  that 
acute  politician  Caleb  Gushing,  then  recently  re- 


312       AMERICAN  LANDS  6-   LETTERS. 

turned  from  European  voyaging,  and  who  not 
much  later  gave  to  the  Knickerbocker  readers  his 
Notes  from  the  Netherlands  ;  but  the  lines  of  po 
litical  travel  for  these  two  Essex  men  soon  diverged 
largely  ;  and  for  the  Gushing  of  John  Tyler's  and 


Whittier's  Home  at  Amesbury,  Mass. 

Buchanan's  day,  it  is  certain  that  Whittier  could 
have  broken  into  no  paeans  of  applause. 

After  1836  he  betakes  himself  to  a  village 
home  in  Amesbury  (the  ancestral  farm  being 
sold),  and  there  —  not  so  far  away  as  to  forbid 
companionship  with  the  hills  and  brooks  which 


Whittier  at  the  Age  of  Thirty-one. 

From  a  crayon  drawing  of  a  daguerreotype  taken  in 


WHITTIERS  HOME.  315 

had  made  rejoicings  for  his  boyhood  —  he  kept 
and  guarded  his  kindly  bachelor  serenity  in  a 
home  which  was  brightened  for  many  and  many  a 
year  by  the  feminine  graces  and  the  unconquer 
able  cheer  and  courage  of  his  younger  sister. 
There  is  all  the  while  more  or  less  of  working  con 
nection  with  this  or  that  local  journal,  which 
represented  his  "Henry  Clay"  and  his  " Indus 
trial  "  proclivities,  and  which  could  show  hospital 
ity  to  the  strong  anti-slavery  note  of  much  of  his 
better  verses  —  by  reason  of  their  poetic  graces. 
He  even  comes  to  the  distinction  of  being  mobbed 
in  those  turbulent  times,  when  George  Thompson, 
the  English  anti-slavery  expositor,  came  over  to 
instruct  New  Englanders  in  their  social  and  moral 
duties.  But  Whittier  was  never  a  man  to  shrink 
from  any  hazards  or  any  indignities  to  which  he 
might  be  exposed  by  firm  and  full  utterances  of 
his  humane  and  kindly  instincts,  and  of  his 
sympathy  with  captives  everywhere.  From  noto 
riety  of  a  vulgar  sort  he  always  shrunk  ;  but  from 
that  which  was  due  to  annoyance,  however 
ignoble,  incurred  for  conscience  sake,  he  never 
shrunk. 


WHITTIER.  317 

In  the  memorable  days  belonging  to  the 
period  of  the  fugitive  slave-law  decision,  and  the 
trend  of  fiery  Northerners  over  the  borders  of 
Kansas,  he  broke  indeed  into  peals  of  Hebraic 
wrath,  which  sometimes  outburned  the  rhetorical 
blaze  of  his  poetic  measure  of  song.  If  he  were 
to  write  again,  under  the  lights  which  have 
opened  upon  him  Beyond,  I  think  he  would 
modify,  in  some  degree,  the  excoriating  mention 
of  Webster  in  his  fiery  poem  of  ' '  Ichabod  " — 

"  Then,  pay  the  reverence  of  old  days 

To  his  dead  fame ; 
"Walk  backward,  with  averted  gaze, 
And  hide  the  shame. " 

Else,  there  would  be  a  cold  meeting  for  those  two 
— twinned  by  traceable  lines  of  Puritan  blood,  and 
twinned  by  the  deep-set  darkling  eyes  —  in  those 
courts  of  Futurity,  where  the  poet  believed  all 
who  had  ever  wrought  well  in  any  lines  of  life 
would  surely  meet. 

Critics  —  knowing  in  those  small  matters  —  say 
that  his  verse  has  technical  flaws  of  rhyme  and 
measure ;  'tis  very  likely,  too,  that  his  classical 
allusions  come  on  the  wing  of  Plutarch  ;  but  his 


3i8       AMERICAN  LANDS  fr   LETTERS. 

Nor-Easters  are  just  as  real,  though  they  do  not 
carry  the  pretty  Greek  clatter  of 

"Eroclydon  —  the  storm-wind." 

But  we  must  leave  this  New  England  master 
of  the  deep-set  eyes  ;  and  in  leaving  I  make  a 
threefold  summing  up  of  the  big  virtues  that  be 
longed  to  this  man  and  to  his  work  :  First  —  his 
humanities  ;  always  ready  to  lift  that  clear  honest 
voice  of  his  to  the  chorus  where  there  was  chant 
ing  in  furtherance  of  humane  enterprise,  or  in 
honor  of  humane  workers  —  whether  living  or 
dead — and  always  generous  to  the  full  limit  of 
his  means ;  always  ready  with  a  sharp  note  of 
distrust  against  organized  schemes  for  the  aggran 
dizement  of  wealth  —  against  wealth  itself  even, 
except  it  came  only  to  flow  out  again  in  beneficent 
streams  of  well-doing,  and  kindly  helpfulness. 
Again,  there  belonged  to  this  singer,  broad  and 
earnest  religious  thought ;  clear,  simple,  and  suffi 
cient,  with  no  crevices  where  the  acrid  juices  of 
sectarianism  could  put  in  their  work.  The  great 
vital  truths  are  set  firmly  in  his  jewelled  verse, 
while  the  lesser  ones,  about  which  doctors  and 


John  G.  Whittier. 


WH2TTIER  321 

presbyters  everlastingly  wrangle,  drift  down  the 
wind  —  even  as  chaff  scuds  away  where  grain  is 
winnowed. 

Yet  another  virtue  in  our  poet  is  his  unblinking 
New  Englandism.  Burns  was  never  more  undis- 
guisedly  Scottish,  than  this  man  was  equipped 


A  Quiet  Day  on  the  Merrimac. 

with  all  the  sights  and  sounds,  and  loves  and 
hopes,  which  clustered  "thither  and  yon"  along 
the  pretty  valley  of  the  Merrimac.  Snows  have 
their  white  memorial  in  little  heaps  filtered 
through  crevices  by  door  or  window  ;  the  horns  of 
the  baited  cattle  clash  against  the  stanchions  in 
the  barn ;  and  with  every  spring-tide  the  arbutus 


21 


322        AMERICAN  LANDS   &   LETTERS. 

and  the  hepatica  blush  through  the  mat  of  last 
year's  leaves. 

"Inland,  as  far  as  the  eye  can  go, 
The  hills  curve  round  like  a  bended  bow ; 
A  silver  arrow  from  out  them  sprung, 
I  see  the  shine  of  the  Quasycung ; 
And  round  and  round,  over  valley  and  hill, 
Old  roads  winding,  as  old  roads  will, 
Here  to  a  ferry,  and  there  to  a  mill ; 
And  glimpses  of  chimneys  and  gabled  eaves, 
Through  green  elm  arches  and  maple  leaves  — 
Old  homesteads  sacred  to  all  that  can 
Gladden  or  sadden  the  heart  of  man. " 

Whittier  wrote  very  much  ;  but  there  are 
touches  of  his  that  will  survive  as  long  as  New 
England  blood  and  pride  survive. 

A  Half-knoivn  Author. 

I  call  this  writer,  of  whom  we  are  now  to  speak 
— and  who  also  had  the  blood  of  middle  New  Eng 
land  brimming  in  him  —  half -known,  because  his 
death  came  about  when  his  work  was  half  done,* 
and  because  the  book  by  which  he  is  best  known, 

*  Sylvester  Judd,  b.  1813 ;  d.  1853.  Margaret,  A  Tale  of 
the  Real  and  the  Ideal,  1845 ;  Life  and  Character  of  Syl 
vester  Judd,  by  Miss  Arethusa  Hall,  Boston,  1854. 


SYLVESTER   JUDD  325 

does  by  reason  of  its  redundancies  and  lack  of 
bookmaking  craft,  only  half  reveal  the  excel 
lencies  of  the  man. 

Though  he  was  younger  by  a  half  dozen  years 
than  Whittier,  yet  he  had  finished  all  his  preach 
ments  in  his  little  church  at  Augusta,  Me.,  and 
had  rounded  out  his  tale  of  books  long  before 
the  Amesbury  poet  had  wrapped  his  memory  in 
the  glittering  covers  of  Snow  Bound. 

Sylvester  Judd  was  bred  in  the  extreme  sancti 
ties  and  rigidities  of  Calvinism  at  Westhampton 
— almost  within  sight  of  that  church  of  a  neighbor 
town  from  which  Jonathan  Edwards  had  been 
dislodged  —  had  been  educated  at  Yale  (1836), 
where  his  diary  shows  uneasy  Edwardsian  self-ex 
aminations  —  had  gone  through  the  whole  gamut 
of  religious  doubts  and  ecstasies  —  had  studied 
"Divinity"  at  Harvard,  and  in  the  easy  fit  of  a 
spick  and  span  Unitarian  jacket  of  belief,  and 
full  of  an  exuberant,  a  self-denying,  and  a  hope 
ful  piety,  he  is  planted  (1840)  over  a  flock  in 
Maine. 

He  was  of  delicate  make,  with  delicate  tastes, 
having  high  reputation  for  scholarship  ;  giving 


326       AMERICAN  LANDS  6*   LETTERS, 


his  conscience  large  range,  and  his  heart,  too  (very 
likely  the  criticasters  would,  and  did,  sneer  at  him 
as  one  wearing  his  heart  upon  his  sleeve)  ;  frail,  as 

I  said,  physi 
cally  ;  but  men 
tally  and  mor 
ally  large;  with 
sensibilities  all 
open,  like  an 
^Eolian  harp  to 
the  wind  ;  but 
true  to  those 
eternal  verities 
by  which  great 
currents  of 
thought  hold 


Sylvester  Judd. 

Reproduced  from  an  Old  Print. 


t  h  6  1  T 


In  the  pulpit  not  trusting  himself  without  notes  ; 
but  sometimes  breaking  away  in  the  heat  of  his  exal 
tation  into  a  warmth  which  was  like  the  fires  in  the 
bush  Moses  saw.  Oftener,  however,  over-humble  — 
stealing  his  way  quietly  to  the  desk  as  if  he  wished 
none  to  see  him  ;  opening  his  talk,  as  if  he  wished 
none  to  hear  him.  Gentle,  scholarly,  shrinking  —  as 


MARGARET.  327 

unlike  as  possible  to  those  Boanerges  who  thunder 
and  wait  for  the  echoes.  Beading,  as  if  what  he 
read  were  the  thing  alone  deserving  of  attention  ; 
and  so  putting  a  magnetic  current  into  the  read 
ing  that  electrified  and  possessed  one  with  a  sense 
of  a  far-away  Power-House,  from  which  life-giv 
ing  currents  flowed. 

This  was  the  man  who  wrote  Margaret,  about 
which  book  I  wish  to  say  one  word  before  closing 
this  chapter  of  talk.  Parley,  the  artist,  did  some 
outline  illustrations  for  the  tale  of  Margaret, 
which  are  admirable,  and  known  to  many  not 
familiar  with  the  story. 

The  book  has  its  circumlocutions.  Words  are 
oft-times  piled  in  heaps  ;  some  we  do  not  know  — 
perhaps  a  scholarly  theft  from  Chaucer,  or  from 
Lydgate  ;  perhaps  a  bit  of  smart  provincialism — 
unfamiliar  but  racy  —  smacking  of  the  real  —  a 
quaver  of  stirring  life  in  them  all.  So  full  of 
wordy  instincts  that  he  tries — with  too  manifest 
a  quest — to  catch  all  the  sounds  of  all  the  birds, 
and  of  all  his  four-footed  friends  of  the  woods,  in 
his  Onamatopoetic  nets :  too  much  of  this,  perhaps ; 
and  throughout,  too  much  of  the  clangor  of  an 


328       AMERICAN  LANDS   &*   LETTERS. 

ambitious  vocabulary.  There  are  curious  down- 
East  characters — driving  oxen  with  quaint  objur 
gatory  phrase,  or  with  knotted  goad  —  putting  in 
their  "gees"  and  "haws"  with  unctuous  nasality; 


Reduced  Fac-simile  of  a  Drawing  by  Darley  in  Sylvester  Judd's 
"  Margaret." 

trousers  and  boots,  and  all  nether  accoutrements, 
scenting  through  and  through  of  the  barn-yard. 
Again,  there  is  a  curious  old  "Master,"  of  teach 
ing  arts  —  perhaps  least  real  of  all  —  a  needed  lay- 
figure  on  which  the  author  hangs  the  tags  of  ex 
ploited  faiths  and  exploded  doctrines,  which  he 


MARGARET.  329 

wants  to  present  in  parenthesis ;  yet  the  figure 
fills  quaintly  and  ingeniously  certain  gaps  which 
the  motherhood  and  sisterhood  of  the  narrative 
could  not  bridge  across. 

I  said  there  were  redundancies  ;  perhaps  one 
may  count  such  the  minute  and  faithful  "re 
peats  "  of  vulgar  domestic  broils  which  have  sway 
in  so  many  isolated  households.  These  come  ' '  to 
the  fore "  in  his  many  unshrinking  ganglions  of 
descriptive  talk,  with  all  the  imbruted  obstinacies 
and  the  yieldings — that  are  not  yieldings — keeping 
up  their  welter,  while  bursts  of  fatherly  and  filial 
feeling  here  and  there  break  through  in  regaling 
rifts  of  sunshine. 

But  more  regaling  than  all  is  the  rarely  absent 
figure  of  Margaret,  penetrated  with  an  illumi 
nating,  inborn  Christ-love,  that  opens  march  for 
her,  and  sets  her  tripping  —  through  whatever 
clouds  —  to  the  glad  light,  which  this  man  of 
conscience  keeps  always  before  him. 

That  pleasing  presence,  with  its  brightness  and 
graces  and  pretty  allurements,  is  throughout  —  as 
he  meant  it  should  be — a  redeeming  feature.  The 
charm  opens  in  the  child's  ingenuousness;  it  keeps 


330       AMERICAN  LANDS  &>   LETTERS. 

its  hold  through  dawning  youthhood  ;  it  honors 
and  dignifies  the  woman  ;  and  from  the  simple 
lustre  of  the  central  figure  the  tag-rags  of  special 
theologic  doctrine  drift  away,  as  she  goes  on  her 
airy-fairy  march  in  the  cleanness  of  the  Christ- 
love — which  is  her  sufficient  adornment. 

It  was  a  large  attempt  this  writer  made — to  show 
through  all  the  interstices  of  family  bickerings 
and  family  loves  and  jealousies,  the  clear  shining 
of  an  unconscious  innocency ;  and  though  he  may 
have  failed  of  full  accomplishment,  he  has  done  so 
much  and  so  well  —  with  such  piquant  touches 
of  real  life — such  dainty  reproduction  of  Nature's 
own  lavish  florescence  and  her  brooding  shadows 
of  the  pine  woods  —  that  his  name  will  long  be 
cherished  in  the  lettered  annals  of  New  England. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

OUR  last  grouping  of  the  characters  in  this 
lettered  story  brought  into  presence  —  first, 
that  keen,  shrewd  man  of  the  woods  and  of  books, 
who,  with  a  joining  of  Scotch,  Norman,  and  Puri 
tan  blood  in  his  veins,  made  up  a  rare  composite 
New  Englander  ;  loving  the  sleepy  meadows  of  the 
slow  Assabet,  and  loving  the  weird  stretch  of  those 
ribs  of  sand  which  brace  Cape  Cod  against  the 
seas ;  loving  books,  too,  and  unfettered  ranges  of 
thought ;  and  by  reason  of  his  early  death  gath 
ered  (before  his  proper  date)  into  the  same  group 
with  those  Concord  men  who  knew  him  in  their 
homes  and  saw  him  die. 

Then  came  into  view  that  gracious  poet  and 
favored  son  of  fortune,  who  began  an  active  career 
with  teaching  Italian  idioms  and  paradigms  to 
Bowdoin  students,  and  endowed  it  with  such 
Psalms  of  Life  as  all  the  world  listened  to,  and 


332       AMERICAN  LANDS  &>  LETTERS. 

kept  in  their  hearts.  After  this,  came  from  the 
same  pen  scholarly  echoes,  in  unexceptionable 
and  daintiest  English,  of  the  marvellous  and 
untranslatable  Inferno  of  Dante. 

Next  we  had  glimpse  of  that  poet-philanthro 
pist  and  humanitarian  who  punctuated  his  kindly 
speech  with  Quaker  Thee's  and  Thou's,  and  his 
poems  all,  with  delightful  rhythmic  graces  ;  never 
a  student  in  great  schools  —  save  that  of  nature  ; 
and  with  a  fund  of  ardent  Americanism  in  him 
that  was  never  diluted  by  European  travel.  That 
little  way-side  Romaunt  of  Maud  Muller  would 
keep  him  always  in  mind  if  he  had  never  written 
verse  with  far  riper  beauties. 

Last  came  that  quiet,  blue-eyed,  almost  boyish, 
preacher,  who  put  sermons  into  his  story  of  Mar 
garet  which  kindle  the  attention  of  listeners  yet. 

Poet  and  Professor. 

There  lies  before  me  as  I  write,  a  little  volume 
of  a  hundred  and  sixty-two  pages,  bound  in  green 
muslin,  with  stamped  figures  of  a  flamboyant  vine 
and  flowers  upon  it — the  binding  sadly  broken, 
and  pages  thumb-worn — with  a  paper  label  on  the 


DOCTOR   HOLMES.  333 

back   bearing  the   legend  "  Holmes's   Poems."* 
It  was  the  first  edition  and  bears  the  date  of  1836; 


Fac-simile  of  Dr.  Holmes's  Handwriting. 

(The  blurred  effect  is  due  to  the  soft  texture  of  the  paper.) 

while   upon  the  tattered  fly-leaf  just  within  the 
covers  is  the  copy  of  a  verse  in  the  handwriting 

*  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  b.  1309  ;  d.  1894.  Poems  (first 
issue),  1836,  Otis,  Brooders  &  Co.,  Boston.  Astraea  *.  B.  K. 
poem,  1850.  The  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast-  Table,  1858; 
The  Professor  at  the  Breakfast-  Table,  1860;  Elsie  Venner, 
1861;  The  Guardian  Angel,  1867;  The  Poet  at  the  Break 
fast-Table,  1872;  #.  W.  Emerson,  1885;  Over  the  Tea 
cups,  1891. 


334       AMERICAN  LANDS  &   LETTERS. 

of  the  master,    from  one  of  his  most   cherished 
poems  : 

"  And  if  I  should  live  to  be 
The  last  leaf  upon  the  tree 

In  the  spring, 

Let  them  smile  as  I  do  now 
At  the  old  forsaken  bough 

Where  I  cling." 
1831  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES.  1890. 

For  fifty-three  years  that  thumb-worn  volume 
had  been  upon  my  shelves,  and  in  sending  it 
(1890)  to  the  author  for  consecration  at  his  hands, 
I  ventured  to  tell  him  (with  the  same  hardihood 
with  which  others  are  now  told)  that  the  book 
had  been  bought  in  early  college  days  (1837),  and 
had  been  read  over  and  over  with  great  glee  and 
liking  —  that  twenty-three  years  later  it  had  been 
read  to  children  at  Edge  wood,  who  had  shown  a 
kindred  glee  and  liking  —  and  that  again,  thirty 
years  later,  the  same  favorite  work  had  been  read 
to  grandchildren  of  the  house,  who  had  listened 
with  the  same  old  love  and  relish. 

Whereupon  the  genial  master  of  verse  returned 
the  book,  with  the  authentication  of  his  kindly 
hand  upon  it,  and  one  of  the  charming  notelets 


ANCESTRY  OF  HOLMES. 


335 


which  slipped  so  easily  from  his  pen.  I  venture 
to  excerpt  a  line  or  two  — 

"  .  .  Laudare  a  laudato  is  always  pleasing,  and  this 
request  of  yours  is  the  most  delicate  piece  of  flattery  —  if 
I  may  use  the  word  in  its  innocent  sense  —  that  I  have  re 
ceived  for  a  long  while." 


The  "  Gambrel-roofed  House "  in  Cambridge    in  which  Dr. 
Holmes  was  Born. 

Our  good  friend,  Dr.  Holmes  (and  all  the  read 
ing  world  has  a  right  to  speak  of  him  thus),  was 
the  son  of  an  old  style  Connecticut  clergyman, 
who  had  been  bred  among  the  rough  pastures  of 
Windham  County,  and  had  been  educated  at  Yale, 


336       AMERICAN  LANDS  6-   LETTERS. 

but  was  afterward  translated  to  Cambridge,  where 
he  had  a  church,  and  a  gambrel-roofed  house — now 
gone — but  perpetuated  by  such  particular  and  ten 
der  mention  on  the  part  of  the  distinguished  son, 
who  was  born  under  its  shelter,  that  we  have  planted 
a  good  picture  of  it  on  these  pages.  This  son 
when  he  printed  his  first  book  of  poems  was 
twenty-seven ;  he  had  graduated  at  Harvard  with 
excellent  scholarly  stand  in  the  class  of  '29 — the 
same  year  on  which  that  sturdy  Federalist,*  Josiah 
Quincy,  succeeded  to  President  Kirkland,  and 
gave  a  sagacious  government  to  the  college — as  he 
had  already  given  good  municipal  order,  and  a 
good  Market-house  to  Boston.  This  many-sided 
President  was  also  author  of  a  history  of  the  Col 
lege  ;  and  we  excerpt  from  it  a  grand  exhibit  of  the 

*  He  strongly  opposed  the  war  with  England  (1812)  and 
the  purchase  of  Louisiana — declaring  that  his  fellow  Con 
gressmen  had  "  no  authority  to  throw  the  rights  and  liberties 
and  property  of  this  people  into  hotch-pot  with  the  wild  men 
on  the  Missouri,  or  with  the  mixed,  though  more  respectable, 
race  of  Anglo-Hispano-Gallo-Americans  who  bask  on  the 
sands  in  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi."  This  sounds  very 
much  like  recent  (1899)  utterances  from  the  mouths  of 
Massachusetts  anti-Imperialists. 


HOLMES  IN  EUROPE.  339 

procession  which  belonged  to  festal  Commence 
ment  days  in  those  old  times  —  when  our  pleasant 
Dr.  Holmes  was  a  young  marcher  there ;  and  a 
pensman  as  well  —  illustrating  the  pages  of  the 
students'  Collegian  with  such  rollicking  fun  as 
you  will  find  in  the  "  Spectre  Pig"  or  in  "the 
Tailor" —  who  prettily  buttoned  his  jacket  "  with 
the  stars." 

For  a  year  or  two  after  graduation  Dr.  Holmes 
had  wavered  between  law  and  medicine,  and 
deciding  for  the  latter,  had  gone  via  New  York 
(where  he  saw  Fanny  Kemble — "a  very  fine  affair, 
I  assure  you  "  *)  to  study  in  Paris  ;  and  there  are 
vivid  little  pictures  in  his  letters — of  Dupuytren, 
Velpeau,  and  Bicord,  who  were  then  prominent  at 
the  Hotel  Dieu  and  La  Charite ;  and  still  other 
vivid  outlines  of  what  was  seen  on  a  quick  run 
through  Holland  and  the  Scottish  country. 

But  that  Connecticut-born  minister,  who  had 
married  for  his  first  wife  a  daughter  of  the  re 
doubtable  President  Stiles  (of  Yale),  and  for  his 
second  wife  that  excellent  lady  of  the  Wendell 
family,  who  gave  to  the  poet  his  name  and  his 

*  Letter  of  March  30,  1833 ;  Morse's  Life,  vol.  i.,  p  83. 


340       AMERICAN  LANDS  6-   LETTERS. 

large  mother-wit,  was  not  greatly  endowed  with 
worldly  goods  ;  and  there  were  serious  question 
ings  if  the  enthusiastic  student  could  extend  his 
voyaging  into  Southern  Europe  —  as  he  greatly 
desired ;  at  last,  however,  self-denials  at  home 
made  the  journey  possible  for  the  eager  young 
New  Englander  —  earnest  to  do  what  "  the  other 
fellows  did ; "  and  a  quick  succeeding  trip  to  Italy 
made  markings  upon  his  mental  camera  which 
never  left  the  young  man's  mind.  "  They  talk 
about  Henry  VII.  Chapel  of  Westminster,"  he 
says  in  a  letter  of  1835  ;  "  'i  would  make  a  very 
pretty  pigeon-house  for  Milan  Cathedral."  Such 
comparisons,  which  carry  a  tale  in  them,  run 
through  all  those  early  letters. 

In  the  spring  of  1838  he  is  at  home  —  a  doctor 
—  with  "  his  sign  "  out ;  quick,  keen,  observant ; 
perhaps  too  boy-like  in  aspect  to  impress  elderly 
people,  and  loving  a  "horse  and  chaise"  then  — 
and  always  —  better  than  a  sick-room.  In  1838  he 
was  made  Professor  at  Dartmouth  ;  had  gained 
praise  for  medical  essays ;  and  at  that  time  or 
thereabout  had  written  upon  the  contagious  char 
acter  of  puerperal  fever,  in  a  way  that  gave  him 


PROFESSOR  HOLMES.  341 

permanent  and  distinguished  place  among  the 
doctors  who  put  brains  into  their  work.  In  1840 
he  married ;  and  some  six  or  seven  years  later 
came  to  his  appointment  as  Professor  of  Anatomy 
in  Harvard  University,  which  he  held  continu 
ously  for  thirty-five  years. 


I  Harvard  Medical  School,  Boston. 

It  was  a  pit,  in  which  he  used  to  lecture  at  the 
old  medical  school  in  North  Grove  Street,  and 
where  he  came  to  his  tasks  —  like  a  veteran,  so  far 
as  anatomical  knowledge  and  precision  of  state 
ment  went ;  but  like  a  boy,  so  far  as  play  of  witty 
allusion  and  comparison  went ;  never  did  a  man 


342       AMERICAN  LANDS  &>   LETTERS. 

of  science  so  halve  his  honors  between  what  was 
due  to  knowledge  and  what  was  due  to  coruscating 
wit.  A  sight  of  him  with  his  forceps  over  a  ca 
daver  made  one  forget  his  poems ;  and  a  reading 
of  his  poems,  such  as  the  Nautilus,  or  the  Last 
Leaf,  made  one  straightway  forget  —  as  they  do 
now  —  all  dead  things. 

As  Autocrat. 

If  that  "  seventy-year  clock  "  set  a  going  by  the 
"Angel  of  Life"  —  about  which  our  Doctor-Poet 
speaks  with  engaging  piquancy  in  the  eighth 
chapter  of  his  first  prose  book  —  had  been  silenced 
at  forty-five,  the  world  in  general  would  have 
known  little  of  the  reach  and  buoyancy  of  his 
mind ;  and  the  biographers  might  have  dismissed 
him  with  mention  like  this  :  "  Died  in  1858,  Dr. 
Holmes,  a  physician  of  fair  practice,  who  lectured 
on  anatomy  and  wrote  clever  poems." 

In  the  winter  of  1831-32  there  had  appeared 
in  that  old  New  England  Magazine  —  in  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  Willis,  Whittier,  and  others 
had  their  occasional  ' '  innings  "  —  a  paper  from 
Dr.  Holmes,  under  title  of  "  Autocrat  of  the 


THE  AUTOCRAT.  343 

Breakfast-Table  ;  "  but  this  was  unripe  fruit ;  and 
it  was  not  until  the  establishment  of  the  Atlantic, 
a  quarter  of  a  century  later,  that  the  same  author 
—  then  at  the  mellow  age  of  forty-eight  —  did, 
under  the  kindly  urgence  of  Editor  Lowell,  under 
take  that  new  series  of  the  "Autocrat"  which 
made  his  fame  and  gave  delight  to  thousands. 

Yet  there  is  scarce  a  page  in  the  book  as  it  fi 
nally  appeared  but  would  have  somewhere  started 
the  sour  disapproval  of  the  conventional  teachers 
of  rhetoric  and  literature  ;  indeed  it  would  be  hard 
to  name  any  book  which  shows  the  rifts  of  new 
lightning  in  it  that  would  satisfy  the  professors 
of  "good  writing."  There  is  no  method  in  the 
Autocrat ;  hardly  has  he  nosed  his  way  into  an 
easily  apprehended  consecutive  line  of  talk,  than 
he  breaks  away — like  a  shrewd  old  hound  who  is 
tired  of  the  yelping  "pack"  —  upon  some  new 
keen  scent  of  his  own.  The  foxy  savors  of  a 
harsh  Calvinism  —  which  he  had  known  in  young 
days — whenever  they  drifted  athwart  his  memory, 
always  put  him  into  such  lively  objurgations  as 
would  have  brought  a  smart  rap  on  the  knuckles 
from  his  Orthodox  father. 


344       AMERICAN  LANDS   fr  LETTERS. 

A  great  many  such  raps  came  to  him  from  other 
quarters,  which  he  took  smilingly  ;   but  never  so 


Holmes  when  a  Young  Man. 

From  a  photograph  by  Ha-wes. 

seriously  as  to  forbid  his  giving  a  new   thwack 
when  occasion  came.     It  was  objected  by   many 


RELIGION  OF  HOLMES.  345 

that  the  Doctor  never  gave  a  full  credo  of  his  own, 
while  picking  flaws  in  so  many.*  The  simple 
opening  of  the  Pater  Noster —  "Our  Father"  — 
had  very  large  religious  significance  for  him  ;  but 
it  is  doubtful  if  the  worshipful  utterance  of  this 
Shibboleth  of  Trust  ever  carried  with  it  that 
suffusion  of  awe  and  mystery  which  wrapped 
around  the  minds  of  Emersonians.  He  was  not 
an  inapt  church-goer ;  rather  loved  a  resting  of 
his  head  against  the  bobbins  of  a  high,  old-fash 
ioned  pew,  whence  he  might  follow  the  discourse, 
as  a  sharp  kingbird  —  to  make  use  of  his  own 
delightful  simile — tracks  the  flight  of  a  stately  and 
ponderous  crow  ;  dipping  at  him  when  angles  of 
flight  served  —  plucking  now  and  then  a  feather 
—  and  if  arriving  at  the  same  goal,  marking  his 
skyey  way  with  a  great  many  interjected  bits  of 
black  plumage. 

Dr.  Holmes  had  not  the  stuff  in  him  to  make 
an  anchorite  of,  or  yet  a  saintly  monk.  He  was 
too  vif  and  incompressible ;  far  apter  to  take  in 

*  Perhaps  the  nearest  approach  may  be  found  in  a  letter 
to  Mrs.  Stowe  (without  date)  in  the  second  volume  of 
Morse's  Biography,  pp.  248-49. 


346       AMERICAN  LANDS  &*   LETTERS. 

evidence  that  came  by  the  way  of  the  probe  and 
the  forceps,  than  that  other  sort  that  comes  by 
soul -right,  or  birth  -  right,  or  Wordsworthian 

memories  — 

u  Trailing  clouds  of  glory !  " 

But,  if  whimsically  critical,  and  odd- whiles  brand 
ishing  his  scalpel  in  threatening  gladiatorial  style, 
'tis  certain  that  in  all  essentials  he  was  at  one  with 
broad-minded  Christian  teachers  everywhere  ;  nor 
do  I  find  it  easy  to  forecast  any  worthy  vision'  of  a 
"  Celestial  country  "  where  the  alert  little  Doctor 
and  his  good  Calvinistic  father  should  not  be 
joined  again  —  hand  and  heart. 

The  Autocrat  was  followed  in  succeeding  years 
—  by  the  Professor,  and  again  the  Poet  —  at  the 
well-used  Breakfast-Table.  But  the  delightful  in 
consequence  of  the  Autocrat's  talk  did  not  admit 
of  duplication.  There  are  gems  scattered  up  and 
down  throughout  the  series ;  all  will  be  cherished 
while  inspiriting  books  are  thought  worth  read 
ing  ;  but  this  will  not  forbid  our  saying  that  the 
first  are  best. 

There  are  woods  which  in  the  burning  give  out 
balsamic  scents  —  regaling,  stimulative  ;  and  there 


THE  AUTOCRAT.  349 

are  books  which,  in  the  reading,  give  out  the  aro 
mas  of  the  fine  spirit  which  went  to  the  kindling 
of  the  text  —  the  spirit  that  flows  out  and  in  — 
transfusing  the  type  —  illuminating  the  crevices 
—  past  all  offices  of  the  "  black  and  white  "  illus 
trators.  And  it  is  this  buoyant,  rollicking,  witty 
Ariel  of  a  spirit,  that  we  recognize  and  love,  all  up 
and  down  the  pages  of  the  Autocrat. 

We  cannot  lay  our  finger  on  the  special  phrase 
which  informs  us  —  beyond  all  informing  proc 
esses  of  other  masters ;  we  cannot  dissect  and 
lay  bare  the  nerve-centres,  which  set  the  mass 
a-throb  ;  but  none  the  less  we  know  they  are 
there. 

If  I  were  challenged  to  name  the  arch  quality 
in  this  brilliant  entertainer,  I  should  be  tempted 
to  put  his  New  England  gumption  (as  the  natives 
call  it)  at  the  very  top.  He  can  indeed  be  elo 
quent  —  this  witty  Doctor  —  and  bring  all  the 
rhythmic  "  beats  and  pauses"  of  the  schools  into 
play  ;  he  can  do  fine  writing  —  with  the  finest ; 
but  he  ventures  on  such  indulgence,  as  if  half- 
ashamed,  and  straightway  lays  some  stroke  of 
high,  mastering  common-sense  athwart  the  page 


350       AMERICAN  LANDS   &   LETTERS. 

which  quite  belittles,  and  subordinates  all  the 
school-craft  and  pen-craft. 

Still  later  came  Biographies  from  the  hand  of 
this  subtle  observer,  well-gauged  and  told  —  con 
ventionally;  but  he  was  largest  when  he  broke 
literary  rules  —  not  when  he  followed  them. 
Motley,  of  whose  life  he  made  a  short  story,  he 
knew  well ;  and  so  could  lay  his  own  heart  to  his, 
and  weigh  the  hazards  and  triumphs  of  his  life 
with  a  quickening  zest  that  made  one  partner  in 
the  joys  and  honors ;  but  with  Emerson  (as  I 
have  already  said*)  it  was  not  the  same.  The 
facets  of  these  two  minds  caught  the  sun  at  dif 
ferent  angles ;  nor  was  there  ever  that  easy,  long- 
continued,  confidential  interchange  of  thoughts 
and  hopes  (as  in  the  case  of  Motley)  which 
paved  the  way  for  a  beguiling  flow  of  biographic 
story.  All  the  crammings  and  the  "readings 
up "  in  the  world  will  not  supply  the  place  of 
this. 

From  all  this,  however  (though  not  without  its 
charm),  and  from  the  later  dishing  of  the  delicate 
Tea-cups,  we  hie  away  to  that  first  budget  of  the 

*  Chapter  IV. ,  present  volume. 


THE  AUTOCRAT.  353 

Autocrat's  talk,  with  glee  and  an  appetite  that 
does  not  pall.  There,  the  Doctor  is  always  delight 
fully  himself  ;  conscientious,  watchful,  chiruppy  ; 
with  an  opinion  always  ready,  pro  or  con;  but 
not  ready  or  apt  to  magnify  or  exalt  that  opinion 
by  resolutions,  or  the  clap-trap  of  a  big  meeting 
and  of  bass  drums  ;  keen  at  a  wallop  of  the  pillule 
methods  of  the  homoeopaths  ;  and  readier  yet  (if  he 
had  encountered  them)  at  a  crack  of  his  resound 
ing  lash  around  the  flanks  and  ears  of  —  so-called 
— Christian  Scientists  ;  tender,  too,  odd-whiles  — 
as  where  he  takes  the  hand  of  the  pretty  School- 
Mistress  in  his  own,  and. sets  off  with  her  down 
the  "  long  path." 

'Tis  not  yet,  I  think,  fully  appreciated  ;  but 
this  book  of  the  Autocrat,  it  seems  to  me,  will  go 
with  Montaigne,  with  the  essays  of  Goldsmith, 
with  Lamb's  Elia,  upon  one  of  the  low  shelves 
where  'twill  always  be  within  reach,  and  always 
help  to  give  joy  in  the  reading ;  and  if  the  prose 
passages  do  not  suffice,  there  remains  that  poem 
of  the  Nautilus  (to  which  my  book  opens  of  it 
self)  ;  how  beautiful,  and  how  charmingly  fresh 

it  is! 

23 


354       AMERICAN  LANDS   fr   LETTERS. 

"  Thanks  for  the  heavenly  message  brought  by  thee, 

Child  of  the  wandering  sea, 

Cast  from  her  lap  forlorn ! 
From  thy  dead  lips  a  clearer  note  is  born 
Than  ever  Triton  blew  from  wreathed  horn ! 

While  on  my  ear  it  rings, 
Through  the  deep  caves  of  thought  I  hear  a  voice  that  sings : 

u  Build  thee  more  stately  mansions,  O  my  soul, 

As  the  swift  seasons  roll ! 

Leave  thy  low- vaulted  past ! 
Let  each  new  temple,  nobler  than  the  last, 
Shut  thee  from  heaven  with  a  dome  more  vast, 

Till  thou  at  length  art  free, 
Leaving  thine  outgrown  shell  by  life's  unresting  sea !  " 

Some  Other  Doctors. 

Among  those  good  Christian  teachers  —  who 
though  no  more  believers  than  the  poet  in  the  literal 
"  lake  of  fire  and  brimstone,"  had  crepitations  of 
doubt  about  the  influences  of  the  anti-calvinistic 
onslaughts  of  the  Professor,  as  possibly  supplanting 
serene  inheritance  of  belief  with  sceptical  unrest 
— was  that  kindly  President  of  Yale*  who  in  1871 
succeeded  to  the  place  of  President  Woolsey.  f 

*  Noah  Porter,  b.  1811 ;  d.  1892.  The  Human  Intellect,  1868 ; 
Books  and  Readings,  1870;  Elements  of  Moral  Science,  1885. 

f  Theodore  Dwight  Woolsey,  b.  1801 ;  d.  1889.  Alcestis, 
1834;  Political  Science,  1871. 


PRESIDENT  WOOLSEY. 


355 


This  latter,  a  nephew  of  the  elder  President 
D wight,  was  a  keen,  sympathetic  scholar ;  not  a 
mere  verbalist,  but 
loving  Greek  because 
Electra,  and  the  woes 
of  Alcestis,  and  a  thou 
sand  charms  lived  in 
its  music ;  withal,  car 
rying  a  stern  Hebraic 
zeal  into  defence  of 
old  -  fashioned  family 
integrities  and  puri 
ties — as  opposed  to  the 
gangrene  of  easy  di 
vorce  ;  joining,  too,  a 
shrewd  Saxon  sense  to  his  large  knowledge  of  inter 
national  law  in  questions  of  state-craft.  All  this 
belonged  to  him  ;  and  so  did  captivating,  scholarly 
courtesies  ;  yet  the  writer  can  well  remember  how 
a  bad  accent  or  a  blundering  murder  of  the  sym 
phonies  that  grew  out  of  a  good  Greek  scansion 
of  Euripides  would  overset  his  nerves,  and  almost 
(but  never  quite)  goad  him  to  anger. 

President  Porter  was  cooler  and  perhaps  calmer ; 


Theodore  D.  Woolsey. 

From  a  photograph  taken  in  1870. 


356       AMERICAN  LANDS  fr   LETTERS. 

more  often  heated  by  metaphysic  burnings  than 
by  any  widowed  woes  of  an  Alcestis ;  yet  a  most 

lovable,  kind- 
hearted  man  — 
incapable  of  an 
untruth,  wheth 
er  he  talked  of 
good  reading  or 
o  f  causalities  ; 
stanchly  ortho 
dox,  and  so  a 
little  inquisitive 
about  the  paces 
of  those  who 
travelled  (theo 
logically)  in  a  broad  road  ;  but  doing  all  his  bat 
tles  with  a  smile  of  kindliness,  and  smiting  the 
Reids  or  Stewarts  —  if  need  were  —  with  blows 
muffled  in  charities.  Not  over-apt  in  delicate 
phrases  —  stronger  in  scholastics  than  in  pretti- 
nesses,  and  reckoning  the  graces  of  an  active  con 
science  and  of  accuracy  beyond  all  the  graces  of 
words. 

We  cannot  pass  the  name  of  that  good,  patient, 


Noah  Porter. 

From  a  jhotografh  taken  about  1872. 


FREEMAN  CLARKE. 


357 


learned  Dr.  Freeman  Clarke,*  who  had  the  large 
heart  and   the   wise   purpose   to   combine  in  his 


James  Freeman  Clarke. 

From  a  photograph  taken  in  1883. 

"  Church  of  the  Disciples  "  (1840)  a  good  many  of 
the  best  things  in  the  service  of  a  half  dozen  sects 
of  believers.  Whatever  we  may  think  of  his 

*  James  Freeman  Clarke,  b.   1810;  d.  1888.     Doctrine  of 
Forgiveness  of  Sin,  1852 ;   Ten  Great  Religions,  1871-83. 


358       AMERICAN  LANDS   &•   LETTERS. 

Ten  Great  Religions  (and  we  know  of  no  book 
that  would  fill  its  place),  we  must  thank  him  for 
the  large  charity  which,  by  his  exposition  of  what 
has  been  reckoned  the  idolatrous  service  of  myri 
ads  of  heathen,  has  brought  them  —  or  was  eager 
to  bring  them  —  into  kindly  relations  with  the  in 
finite  Power  symbolized  by  their  idols.  He  was 
an  earnest  advocate  of  all  worthy  freedom,  and  of 
human  brotherhood  ;  I  wish  as  much  could  be 
said  of  all  accredited  preachers. 

Contemporary  with  these  men  I  have  named, 
were  those  brothers  Reed  of  Pennsylvania — grand 
sons  of  General  Joseph  Reed  *  of  Revolutionary  an 
nals — one  of  whom  was  honorably  known  in  diplo 
matic  position  ;  the  other  by  his  loving  and  critical 
charge  of  the  earliest  American  edition  of  "Words 
worth  ;  both  held  professorships  in  the  University 
of  Pennsylvania,  and  both  kept  bravely  alive  the 
best  traditions  of  Philadelphia  culture. 

*  President  of  second  provincial  congress,  Adjutant  Gen 
eral  under  Washington,  and  subject  of  certain  ill-founded 
allegations  (in  earlier  editions  of  Bancroft's  History),  which 
were  successfully  antagonized  by  William  B.  Reed,  who 
was  Minister  to  China  (1857)  and  negotiated  the  treaty  of 
1858. 


A    JOURNALIST. 


359 


Horace  Greeley. 

If  Professor  Henry  Reed  (unfortunately  lost  in 
the  Arctic  catastrophe  of  1854)  be  a  good  type 
of  the  culture  which  comes  of  collegiate  discipline 


House  at  Amherst,  N.  H.,  in  which  Greeley  was  Born. 

and  happy  social  adjuncts,  Horace  Greeley*  may 
be  counted  an  excellent  one  of  that  hardy  and 
resolute  training  which  belongs  to  what  we  call  a 
"  self-made  "  man.  That  flax-haired,  smooth-faced 

*  Horace  Greeley,  b.  1811;    d.  1872.     American    Conflict, 
1864-66;  Recollections  of  a  Busy  Life,  1868. 


360       AMERICAN  LANDS   6-   LETTERS. 

boy,  who  founded  the  bright  little  New  Yorker 
in  1834,  and  decoyed  bright  workers  into  his  trail, 
and  who  ultimately  founded  the  New  York 
Tribune  with  a  great  galaxy  of  literary  retainers 
—  that  boy,  I  say,  who  was  sprung  from  Scotch- 
Irish  forbears,  and  who  knew  all  the  good  huckle 
berry  patches  and  the  haunts  of  partridges  around 
the  high-lands  of  his  New  Hampshire  home,  had 
a  grievously  hard  time  in  his  youth.  Even  dis 
trict-school  chances  were  narrow ;  home-funds 
were  narrower.  He  chopped,  he  burned  coal,  he 
rode  horse  to  plough  ;  he  battled  with  all  storms, 
and  carried  that  brave,  smooth  front  of  his  at  the 
head  of  the  column,  when  the  New  Hampshire 
farming  broke  down  and  the  sheriff  had  come, 
and  the  family  was  afoot  for  a  new  home  by  Lake 
Champlain.  There,  the  status  of  the  son  >was  no 
better;  nor  better  in  further  and  more  westerly 
wanderings. 

There  was  nothing  but  work  for  him  ;  crudest 
work  at  first ;  then,  work  at  the  trade  of  printer, 
which  he  had  learned  ;  multiplied  foot- wanderings 
followed  —  which  bring  him  at  last  (1831)  to  New 
York  —  with  a  round  face,  quick  courage,  com- 


Horace  Greeley. 

From  a  daguerreotype  in  the  collection  of  Mr.  Peter  Gilsey. 


THE  NEW  YORKER.  363 

plexion  like  a  girFs,  and  five  dollars  in  his  pocket. 
After  sundry  experiences,  good  and  bad,  he  had 
the  pluck  and  the  pennies  to  set  up  (1834)  the 
New  Yorker,  a  weekly  journal  —  largely  literary, 
but  not  afraid  to  declare  its  political  and  economic 
leanings. 

Those  who  twirl  over  the  early  numbers  of  the 
New  Yorker  will  find  a  strong  —  perhaps,  over- 
ambitious,  literary  flavor,  with  pretty  flashes  of 
verse  —  maybe,  from  some  such  poetesses  as  Mrs. 
Whitman,  and  Mrs.  Osgood,  or  other  charmers. 
Park  Benjamin,*  too,  puts  in  an  appearance  — 
sometimes  as  associate  editor  —  showing  somewhat 
of  the  impetuosity,  vigor,  and  virulence  which  in 
those  days  commanded  a  listening. 

This  last-named  writer  was  born  of  American 
parents  in  Demerara  ;  had  come  hither  early  in 
life  ;  had  suffered  cruel  surgical  treatment,  which 
with  natural  disabilities  left  him,  in  manhood, 
stalwart  in  arms,  chest,  and  head,  but  incurably 
crippled  as  to  his  nether  limbs.  Possibly  he  was 
unhinged  by  this  ill  make-up  ;  certain  it  is,  that 
with  a  capacity  for  the  weaving  of  words  into  very 

*  Park  Benjamin,  b.  1809 ;   d.  1864. 


364       AMERICAN  LANDS   6-   LETTERS. 

engaging  and  resonant  verse,  he  united  great  apti 
tude  for  wordy  quarrels  and  for  vitriolic  satire. 
He  was  a  man  of  strong  brain,  possessed  of  tropi 
cal  passionateness  of  utterance  ;  but  never  accorn 


Greeley  at  his  Desk  in  the  Tribune  Office. 

plishing  what  his  keen,  active   mind  promised, 
and  friends  hoped  for. 

Greeley's  affiliation  with  Benjamin  was  not, 
however,  for  very  long  ;  but  he  did  draw  into  the 
journalistic  ranks,  later,  such  faithful  workers  as 


SELF-MADE  MAN  365 

Raymond,  Margaret  Fuller,  Charles  Dana,  Ripley, 
Curtis,  and  many  another  who  has  contributed  — 
each  in  his  or  her  way — to  make  of  the  old  Tribune 
an  efficient  nurse  of  early  American  letters. 

With  all  his  aptitude  for  sharp  political  dis 
cussion,  and  a  capacity,  if  need  were,  for  noisy 
storms  of  temper  and  floods  of  Billingsgate,  he 
had  yet  a  nice  sense  of  poetic  beauties ;  loving 
them  in  his  youth  ;  loving  them  later  ;  and  always 
keenly  sensitive  to  the  dash  and  fervor  of  a  good 
poem,  or  to  a  thrilling  burst  of  music.  Like  most 
self-made  men  he  was  a  little  suspicious  and  jeal 
ous  of  the  accomplishments  that  come  of  colle 
giate  study  or  any  organized  costly  paraphernalia  ; 
counting  Latinity  and  Greek — with  scholarly  mas 
tership  of  even  the  modern  languages — as  so  much 
of  millinery  trapping,  serving  only  as  a  pretty  dis 
guise  for  the  essential  under-truths,  always  ever 
so  much  better  in  their  homely  Saxon  nakedness. 
He  loved  to  extol  the  successes  of  those  who  had 
won  place,  without  the  drill  of  the  cloisters,  and 
without  that  wearing  down  and  polish  of  rough 
mental  edges  and  of  egotism,  which  are  apt  to 
belong  to  those  never  whirled  about  in  the  hopper 


366       AMERICAN  LANDS   5-   LETTERS. 

of  a  college,  and  never  submitted  to  sturdy  tussle 
with  fellows  as  big  as  they,  on  Division  Room 
benches. 

He  believed,  though,  in  handicraft ;  and  would 
have  thrown  his  old  white  hat  into  the  air  could 
he  have  known  of  the  establishment  and  popular 
ity  of  our  "  Industrial  Schools."  An  intelligent, 
helpful,  and  tender  sympathy  always  bound  him 
to  those  who  worked  and  to  those  who  were  poor. 
His  daughter,  Mrs.  Clendenin,  with  filial  gracio.us- 
ness,  gives  picture  of  him — on  a  stormy  night  of 
winter — bringing  "little  homeless,  ragged  girls  to 
shelter,  and  carrying  their  burdens  for  them."  * 

The  Chappaqua  Farm. 

He  never  overcame  either,  his  old  love  for 
farming,  and  for  its  processes  and  products. 
Through  all  the  intense  belligerencies  of  his  later 
political  life  he  held  and  rejoiced  in  his  little 
farm,  with  its  modest  house  and  bouncing  barn 
upon  the  hill-slopes  of  Chappaqua.  It  was  within 
three  (or  at  most  four)  years  before  the  end  of  his 
career  that  I  passed  a  day  with  him  there  ;  drawn 

*  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  February,  1892. 


GREELEY  AS   WOODSMAN.  369 

thither  by  quick  interest  in  his  draining  schemes, 
and  farm  experimentation.  He  gave  most  ready 
welcome  to  curiosity  of  that  sort,  and  doffed  all 
political  professions  and  pretensions  when  the 
perfume  of  the  Chappaqua  woods  beguiled  him. 
He  was  in  his  best  strength  in  those  days ;  his 
complexion  still  like  a  girl's  ;  his  courtesies  blunt, 
but  not  without  a  disguised  heartiness ;  his  ad 
miration  for  his  newly  equipped  barn  was  boister 
ous  ;  his  enthusiasm  over  a  good  "  run  "  from  his 
drainage  tile,  exuberant ;  his  welcome  of  the  sun 
shine,  and  of  the  notes  of  a  bob-o'-link  lilting  over 
an  alder-bush  in  the  meadow  was  jubilant.  'Twas 
a  simple  dinner  we  had  at  the  homestead ;  his 
courtesies  there  all  aimed  to  beat  down  memories 
of  idle  and  non-essential  conventionalities.  This 
ceremony  over,  he  advised  me  that  after  dinner  he 
was  used  to  take  an  hour  or  more  of  exercise  with 
his  axe,  in  the  woods  ;  "  perhaps,  as  farmer  [with  a 
little  mischief  in  his  tone],  I  would  join  him;" 
and  he  pointed  to  a  second  axe  which  was  at  my 
service. 
I  am  not  sure,  but  have  a  grave  suspicion  that 

there  was  a  large  streak  of  humor  in  his  proposal, 
24 


370      AMERICAN  LANDS   6"  LETTERS. 

and  that  he  greatly  misdoubted  the  practical 
handicraft  of  his  guest.  It  chanced,  however,  that 
an  axe  was  a  favorite  tool  with  me;  and  I  think  I 
never  enjoyed  a  triumph  more  than  that  over  my 
host,  when  we  had  come  to  the  wood  —  not  only 
on  score  of  time,  but  in.  showing  by  my  scarf,  that 
even  distribution  of  right  and  left-handed  strokes 
—  without  which  no  workman-like  stump  can  be 
assured.  His  pleasant  face  beamed  with  generous 
acknowledgment ;  he  even  doffed  his  white  hat  in 
recognition  of  work  done  in  good  wood-chopper 
style  ;  while  a  certain  respect  for  his  city  guest  was 
at  last  apparent.  This  little  incident  is  detailed 
only  to  make  clear  the  engaging  simplicities  be 
longing  to  the  character  of  the  great  journalist. 

Three  years  thereafter  (the  visit  taking  place  in 
1868)  Mr.  Greeley  was  nominated  for  the  Presi 
dency  by  those  "  liberal  Eepublicans "  who  were 
disaffected  with  General  Grant ;  and  the  Demo 
cratic  party  —  by  a  sudden  volte-face — endorsed 
the  candidacy.  This  involved  a  disruption  of  old 
party  alliances,  and  such  a  campaign  of  abusive 
and  malignant  personalities  as  overset  all  the 
tranquillities  and  patient  endurance  of  the  author 


Greeley  in  the  Woods  of  Chappaqua. 


From  a  photograph  taken  in  1869,  at  t^le  instance  of  the  author,  and  now  ttt  his 


EDGAR  ALLEN  POE.  373 

of  the  American  Conflict.  All  the  more  was  this 
turbid  whirl  of  the  political  caldron  disturbing 
and  maddening,  when  the  tide  (which  seemed  at 
first  setting  his  way)  changed,  and  left  him 
stranded  with  a  hopeless  minority  of  votes.  He 
had  worn  himself  down  with  eager,  intense  speech- 
making  ;  he  had  fretted  under  unwelcome  fellow 
ships  ;  he  had  wilted  under  appalling  affliction  in 
his  own  household  ;  at  last  his  brain  was  shaken. 
There  was  indeed  one  little  brave,  beautiful 
struggle  to  hold  fast  the  shifting  helm  of  the  old 
Tribune  ship ;  but  it  was  vain ;  and  in  1872  — 
only  four  years  after  the  pleasant  encounter  in 
the  shady  woods  of  Chappaqua  —  the  beaming 
face,  all  drawn  by  mental  inquietudes  and  the 
shivers  of  delirious  frenzy,  was  hidden  away  in 
some  Maison  de  Sante  of  the  Westchester  Hills, 
never  to  mend  until  death  came  with  its  healing 
calm,  and  gave  to  his  countenance  the  old  serenities. 

Bred  in  the  Purple. 

So  much  like  a  Romance  is  the  life  and  death 
of  the  next  writer  —  and  the  last  I  bring  to  your 
present  notice  —  that  I  am  tempted  to  begin,  as  old 


374       AMERICAN  LANDS   fr   LETTERS. 

stories  begin  :  —  "  Once  upon  a  time,"  nearly  a 
century  ago,  a  gay  young  fellow,  of  good  presence, 
hailing  from  Baltimore,  who  had  run  away  from 
home,  and  had  married  a  young  actress  of  bewitch 
ing  face  and  figure  (albeit  she  was  a  widow),  and 
was  carrying  out  some  theatre  engagement  with 
her  in  the  Puritan  city  of  Boston,  gave  word  at  the 
ticket  office  (January,  1809)  that  there  would  be 
an  interruption  in  the  performances ;  and  pres 
ently  thereafter,  a  baby-boy  was  born  to  the  twain, 
who  was  called  Edgar.* 

The  father's  name  was  David,  aged  thirty  ;  not 
a  very  good  actor,  but  a  zealous  protector  of  his 
wife's  claims,  and  threatening  on  one  occasion  to 
give  a  caning  to  Buckingham  (of  that  New  Eng 
land  Magazine  where  Whittier,  Willis,  and  Haw- 

*  Edgar  A.  Poe,  b.  1809;  d.  1849.  Tamerlane  and  other 
Poems,  1827;  Tales  of  the  Grotesque,  1840;  The  Raven, 
1845.  Biographies:  by  Griswold,  harsh  in  its  judgments;  In 
gram,  full,  but  over-defensive ;  Stoddard,  wholly  fair,  not 
extended ;  Woodberry  (in  American  Men  of  Letters*} ,  faith 
ful,  painstaking,  cleverly  done,  but  not  altogether  sym 
pathetic.  The  late  Professor  Minto's  sketch  (British  En- 
cyclopcedia),  very  misleading ;  and  Lang's  note  in  his  piquant 
Letters  to  Dead  Authors,  has  kindred  misjudgments. 


POE'S  PARENTAGE.  375 

thorne  afterward  wrought)  for  an  adverse  criticism 
of  his  pretty  wife  —  who  managed  piquantly  the 
parts  of  Cordelia  and  of  Ophelia.  As  the  baby 


Elizabeth  (Arnold)  Poe,  Mother  of  the  Poet. 

From  a  reproduction  of  a  miniature  in  the  possession  of  J okn  H.  Ingram,  Esq. 

grew,  the  mated  parents  slipped  away  for  engage 
ments  in  New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  Richmond. 
The  pretty  mother  died  at  the  latter  place  in 
1811,  and  the  boy  Edgar,  then  scarce  two,  was 
adopted  by  the  young  and  childless  wife  of  a 


376       AMERICAN  LANDS   6-   LETTERS. 

Scottish,  well-to-do  tobacco  merchant  named 
Allan.  With  these  new  parents  the  boy  was 
launched  upon  a  life  of  luxury.  He  was  bright, 
intelligent,  apt ;  and  before  he  was  six,  used  to 
declaim,  "play  parts,"  and  sing  songs  upon  the 
"mahogany  table/'  for  the  amusement  of  his 
foster-father's  guests. 

In  1815  the  family  sailed  for  Europe ;  and  Edgar 
was  put  to  school  at  Stoke  Newington,  under  the 
lee  of  Stamford  Hill,  some  three  miles  north  of 
London  Tower.  It  was  a  locality  that  would  in 
terest  a  quick  lad.  Defoe  had  written  his  story  of 
Robinson  Crusoe  in  a  gaunt  old  building  near  by, 
and  still  standing  ;  and  Dr.  Watts  had  trilled 
his  "  Infant  Songs  "  in  a  fine  park  of  the  neighbor 
hood  and  lay  buried  thereabout ;  but  I  don't  think 
Edgar  Poe  was  ever  very  tender  upon  Dr.  Watts. 

In  the  four  or  five  years  of  that  English  school- 
life,  the  boy  gets  a  smattering  of  French  and 
Latin — has  his  rages  at  Murray's  Grammar — plants 
in  deep  lines  upon  his  thought,  images  of  darkly 
shaded  dells  or  of  brawling  rivers  (to  make  sombre 
or  stormy,  pages  of  future  stories)  ;  and  when  he 
sails  for  home  (1820),  his  quick  vision  takes  in 


UNIVERSITY  LIFE.  377 

pictures  of  boiling  green  seas,  or  of  canvas  strain 
ing  from  the  topsail  yards,  that  will  all  come  to 
him  (when  he  wants  them)  for  the  narrative  of 
Gordon  Pym,  or  the  glassy  whirl  of  a  maelstrom. 
Then  —  all  the  while  lapped  in  purple  —  he  has 
his  school  at  Richmond  again ;  wrestling  gayly 
with  Latin  and  Greek ;  a  lithe  swimmer  in 
stretches  of  the  James  River  ;  not  large,  but  firmly 
knit,  with  broad,  bold  forehead  and  lustrous  eyes ; 
having  his  little  Byronic  episodes  of  love-making 
to  women  older  than  he  ;  getting  himself  planted, 
later,  at  the  University  (which  we  have  seen 
growing  among  the  mountains  under  Jefferson's 
care) ;  not  so  much  a  favorite  there,  as  one  ad 
mired  ;  shy  of  intimacies,  proud,  using  the  Scotch 
Allan  moneys  over-freely ;  making  debts  "  of 
honor,"  which  Papa  Allan  will  not  pay  ;  and  so — 
a  break  ;  the  proud  boy  (aged  seventeen)  going  off 
—  after  a  short  year  of  college  life  —  Boston-ward, 
to  seek  his  fortune. 

Soldier  and  Poet. 

His  book  of  Tamerlane  is  printed  in  1827.  Shall 
we  catch  one  little  six-line  verse  from  it,  to  show 


BY  A  BOSTONIA  W. 


Young  heads  are  giddy,  and  young  hearts  are  warm, 
And  make  mistakes  for  manhood  to  reform.— -Cow PER. 


BOSTON : 

CALVIN  F.  S.  THOMAS PRINTER. 


Fac-simile  of  the  Title-page  of  Poe's  First  Book. 

From  the  copy  in  the  possession  of  Thomas  y.  M cKee,  Esq.,  of  New  York 


POE  AS  SOLDIER.  379 

how  the  limner  of  the  Raven  pitched  his  first 
song  ? — 

"  We  grew  in  age  —  and  love  —  together  — 
Roaming  the  forest  and  the  wild, 
My  breast  her  shield  in  wintry  weather ; 

And  when  the  friendly  sunshine  smiles, 
And  she  would  mark  the  opening  skies, 
I  saw  no  Heaven  —  but  in  her  eyes." 

But  from  the  poor,  thin  book  (pp.  40),  of  which 
a  late  copy  commanded  $1,800,  no  money  came 
and  no  fame  ;  he  enlists  in  the  army  (1827)  under 
the  name  of  "  E.  P.  Perry  "  —  giving  his  age  as  two 
or  three  years  greater  than  dates  warrant ;  is  Ser 
geant-Major  at  Fortress  Monroe  (1829)  ;  gets  dis 
charge  through  agency  of  friends,  and  by  similar 
agency  receives  appointment  as  cadet  at  West 
Point ;  grows  tired  of  this,  and  after  a  year  is  dis 
missed — by  a  court-martial  which  he  has  himself 
invited — his  scholarly  "  rating  "  putting  him  third 
in  French,  and  seventeenth  in  mathematics,  in  a 
class  of  eighty-seven. 

He  has  twelve  cents  to  his  credit  at  leaving  ;  his 
pride  intense,  yet  his  mates  make  up  a  purse 
which  gives  him  a  start ;  and  within  the  year  (1831) 


380       AMERICAN  LANDS   fr  LETTERS. 

there  is  a  fresh,  thin  booklet  *  of  poems,  old  and 
new  —  among  them  the  first  stirrings  of  the  lyre 

of  Israfel, 

u  Whose  heart-strings  are  a  lute," 

making  echoes  that  are  not  yet  dead. 

But  the  cadets  do  not  relish  the  little  green- 
covered  volume,  nor  do  many  others ;  so  he 
wanders  southward  —  wins  a  prize  for  his  story  of 
MS.  found  in  a  Bottle ;  encounters  for  the  first 
time  J.  P.  Kennedy,  who  is  his  stanch  friend 
thereafter  always  ;  sometimes  he  is  sunk  in  the 
depths  of  poverty,  and  sometimes  regaling  himself 
in  such  over-joyous  ways  as  have  sad  and  fateful 
reaction.  Among  the  paternal  relatives  he  falls  in 
with  at  Baltimore  is  the  widowed  sister  of  his 
father — Mrs.  Clemm,  with  her  daughter  of  eleven 
(the  archetype  of  his  delightful  flesh-and-blood 
story  of  Eleonora),  who  are  thenceforth  for  many 
a  year  "all  in  all"  to  him.  With  that  dark-haired 
girl  in  her  earlier  teens,  the  high-browed  pale  poet 
—  with  shrunken  purse  and  pride  at  its  highest  — 
may  have  wandered  time  on  time,  over  the  pretty 
undulations  of  surface,  where  the  trees  of  Druid 
*  Published  by  Elam  Bliss,  1831,  pp.  124. 


POE  AT  RICHMOND.  381 

Hill  now  cast  their  shadows.  There  may  have 
been  a  yearning  for  the  latitude  of  Eichmond  and 
for  the  luxuries  of  the  big  brick  mansion  of  the 
Allans  (corner  of  Main  and  Fifth  Streets),  where 
he  had  in  his  boy-days  won  plaudits  for  his  oratory 
over  the  mahogany  of  his  foster-father. 


The  Allan  House,  Richmond,  Va. 

The  hopes  that  centred  there,  however,  were 
soon  at  an  end  ;  the  kindly  Mrs.  Allan  had  died 
in  1829  ;  in  1833  the  master  of  the  great  house  had 
married  again  ;  and  the  year  following  had  gone 
from  it  to  his  grave — not  without  one  last  inter 
view,  when  he  had  lifted  his  cane  threateningly 
upon  the  discarded  Edgar. 


382        AMERICAN  LANDS   &   LETTERS. 

But  the  poet  finds  work  in  Richmond  upon  the 
/Southern  Literary  Messenger;  he  has  promise  of 
ten  dollars  a  week;  and  upon  that  promise — tak 
ing  radiance  from  the  poetic  haloes  of  his  genius — 
he  determines  to  marry  that  sweet  girl-cousin  of 
his,  Virginia  Clemm  —  scarce  fifteen  as  yet  —  and 
establish  her,  with  her  helpful  mother,  in  a  home 
of  his  own.  There  is  opposition,  strong  and  pro 
tracted  ;  but  it  is  over-borne  by  the  impetuosity  of 
the  poet  ;  and  the  strange  wedding  comes  about 
(1836),  the  certificate  of  marriage  declaring  the 
bride  —  twenty-one  !  * 

Whether  by  pre-natal  influences  or  forces  of 
education,  the  moral  sense  was  never  very  strong 
in  the  poet ;  nor  was  there  in  him  any  harassing 
sense  of  the  want  of  such  a  sense.  He  used  a  help 
ful  untruth  as  freely  and  unrelentingly  as  a  man 
—  straying  in  bog-land  —  would  put  his  foot  upon 
a  strong  bit  of  ground  which,  for  the  time,  held 
him  above  the  mire. 

But  there  is  no  permanent  establishment  in 
Richmond ;  there  are  differences  with  the  kindly 

*  Ifusting's  Court  Records,  Richmond ;  cited  by  Mr.  Wood- 
berry,  p.  98. 


POE  IN  NEW   YORK.  383 

Mr.  White  of  the  Messenger  ;  and  presently  a  de 
scent  upon  Egypt  (New  York),  where  the  Harpers 
publish  for  the  poet  the  narrative  of  Gordon  Pym 
—  full  of  all  the  horrors  of  piracy,  of  wreck,  and 
of  starvation.  Mrs.  Clemm  had  come  with  Poe 
on  his  migration,  and  eked  out  resources  (which 
did  not  flow  bountifully  from  Gordon  Pym),  by 
taking  boarders  —  among  them  that  stalwart, 
shock-headed,  independent,  much-knowing  book 
seller,  William  Gowans  by  name,  who  —  one  time 
in  Centre  Street  and  again  in  Fulton  and  Nassau — 
reigned  despotically  over  great  ranges  of  books, 
and  loved  to  talk  patronizingly  and  in  well-meas 
ured  commendation  of  the  author  of  the  Raven. 

Philadelphia  to  Neio  York. 

But  we  cannot  follow  piece  by  piece  and  flame 
by  flame  the  disorderly  party-colored  story  of  this 
child  of  misfortune  —  always  finding  admiration, 
and  only  pence  when  he  looked  for  pounds ;  and 
only  canny  distrust  where  he  looked  —  through 
filmy  eyes — for  welcome  and  heartVease.  From 
New  York  he  goes  to  Philadelphia,  issuing  there — 


384       AMERICAN  LANDS  6-   LETTERS. 

on  some  new  (perhaps  extraneous)  influence  —  a 
work  on  conchology  ;  making  a  good  many  similar 
and  fuller  works  contributary  to  his  treatise  for 
learners  ;  reminding  us  in  a  degree  of  Goldsmith, 
when  he  wrote  about  Animated  Nature.  But  if 
our  poet  of  Israfel  avails  himself  of  the  labors 
and  print-work  of  scientists,  he  does  it  with  a  most 
shrewd  and  quick  apprehension  of  their  "  parts  ;  " 
and  makes  his  own  exhibit  of  old  knowledges  with 
the  large  understanding  and  keen  discernment  of 
a  man  who  knows  how  to  gather  apt  material  and 
how  to  dispense  it. 

He  has  his  "romantic"  engagements,  too,  with 
the  early  magazinists  of  Philadelphia;  with  Graham 
(of  whom  Professor  Smyth  *  tells  us  the  eventful 
story)  —  with  that  rollicking  comic  actor,  William 
Burton,  who  had  his  Gentleman's  Magazine,  and 
afterward  (1848)  his  Chambers  Street  Theatre  in 
New  York,  where  he  put  multitudes  into  good 
humor  with  his  Micawber  and  Captain  Cuttle. 
There  are  literary  relations  in  those  days,  more 
or  less  intimate,  with  Lowell  —  working  at  his 
Pioneer  ;  and  with  Griswold,  who  is  edging  his 

*  Philadelphia  Magazine,  1741-1850,  1892. 


SPRING-  GARDEN. 


385 


Edgar  Allan  Poe. 

Front  a  reproduction  of  a  daguerreotype  formerly  in  the  possession  of  "  Stella" 
{Mrs-  Estelle  S.  A.  Lewis),  now  the  property  of  John  H.  Ingram,  Esq. 

way  into  the  good  graces  of  Mr.  Graham.  We 
note,  too,  the  names  of  John  Sartain  (known  for 
good  work  in  art  lines),  and  of  Godey,  and  many 

another,  in  the  record  of  Poe's  literary  schemings 

25 


386       AMERICAN  LANDS   &  LETTERS. 

and  life ;  we  perceive  that  the  interesting  girl- 
wife  is  domiciled  with  the  broad-browed  poet  in 
a  little  cottage  over  on  Spring- Garden  ways  —  of 
which  Captain  Mayne  Eeid  tells  us — and  how  the 
vines  and  roses  overhung  it  and  made  of  it  a  bower 
of  beauty  ;  and  we  learn  furthermore,  that  in  that 
Spring-Garden  bower,  over  which  the  matronly 
and  energetic  Mrs.  Clemm  presided,  there  came 
suddenly  a  cruel  overset  of  all  force  in  the  pretty 
girlish  Virginia,  who  seemed  bleeding  away  her 
life  before  the  awe-struck  husband.  Thence  came 
a  shock  to  him,  which  he  sought  to  mitigate  —  as 
his  own  plaintive  record  tells — by  plunging  into 
uncanny  ways  of  self-forgetfulness. 

It  is  easy  to  break  asunder  the  ties  holding  him 
to  this  or  that  city.  One  would  say,  looking 
upon  the  long  array  of  discarded  literary  partner 
ships,  that  it  was  easy  for  him  to  break  all  ties  ; 
yet  he  was  never  tired  of  the  tie  that  bound  him 
to  the  pretty  child-wife  and  kinswoman  who  goes 
with  him  to  a  new  home  in  New  York  —  her 
frailties  of  health  darkly  shadowing  him  ;  and  he 
shading  her  in  all  inapt  ways,  from  the  pitiless 
burnings  and  vexations  of  their  narrowed  means. 


THE  RAVEN.  387 

Here  again,  as  everywhere,  poverty  pierces  him 
like  a  knife.  But  still  his  hopes  are  as  jubilant 
and  exaggerated  as  his  despairs  ;  most  of  all,  when, 
after  working  under  the  kindly  patronage  of  Willis 
upon  the  old  New  York  Evening  Mirror,  there 
blazes  upon  the  public  eye,  on  a  certain  afternoon 
of  January,  1845,  that  weird  poem  of  the  Raven 
(copied  from  advance  sheets  of  the  American 
Whig  Revieiv  for  February),  and  which  drifted 
presently  from  end  to  end  of  the  country  upon  a 
wave  of  Newspaper  applause. 

I  remember  well  with  what  gusto  and  unction 
the  poet-editor*  of  that  old  Whig  Review  read 
over  to  me  (who  had  been  a  younger  college  friend 
of  his),  in  his  ramshackle  Nassau  Street  office, 
that  poem  of  the  Raven  —  before  yet  it  had  gone 
into  type  ;  and  as  he  closed  with  oratorical  effect 
the  last  refrain,  declared  with  an  emphasis  that 
shook  the  whole  mass  of  his  flaxen  locks  —  "  that 
is  amazing  —  amazing  !  "  It  surely  proved  so  ; 
and  how  little  did  that  clever  and  ambitious  editor 
(who  died  only  two  years  later)  think  that  one  of 

*  George  H.  Colton,  b.  1818;  d.  1847.  A  poem  of  his, 
Tecumseh,  was  published  in  1842  by  Wiley  &  Putnam. 


388       AMERICAN  LANDS  &•   LETTERS. 

his  largest  titles  to  remembrance  would  lie  in  his 
purchase  and  issue  of  that  best  known  poem  of 
Edgar  Poe ! 

If  the  author  had  been  secured  a  couple  of  pen 
nies  only  for  each  issue  of  that  bit  of  verse,  all  his 
pecuniary  wants  would  have  been  relieved,,  and 
he  secure  of  a  comfortable  home ;  but  this  was 
not  to  be.  From  this  time  forth  he  came  into 
more  intimate  relations  with  those  who  were 
working  on  literary  lines  in  New  York.  Willis 
befriended  him  frankly  and  honorably  ;  Briggs 
became  a  quasi  partner  in  some  journal  interests  ; 
Godey  and  Sartain  and  Graham  looked  after  him 
from  the  Quaker  city  with  admiring  friendliness  ; 
in  the  coteries  which  used  to  gather  at  the  rooms 
of  Miss  Anna  Lynch  (Mme.  Botta),  he  would  have 
met  and  did  meet  the  sedate  and  well-read  Mr. 
Tuckerman,  with  Mrs.  Kirkland  of  the  New  Home  ; 
the  brothers  Duyckinck  would  have  been  there, 
and  poor  Fenno  Hoffman ;  perhaps  also  Halleck, 
and  Drs.  Francis,  Dewey,  and  Hawks  —  with  pos 
sibly  that  loiterer  upon  the  stage  —  Fenimore 
Cooper. 


HOME  AT  FORDHAM. 


389 


Fordham  and  Closing  Scenes. 

In  1846,  when  cherries  were  a-bloom,  we  learn 
that  Poe  (straitened  then  as  always)  took  posses 
sion  of  a  little  "story  and  a  half"  house  upon  the 


The  Poe  Cottage  at  Fordham. 

heights  of  Fordham,  which  within  a  year  was  still 
standing.  There,  in  a  desolate  room,  his  young 
wife  contended — as  she  had  done  for  six  years 
now  —  with  a  disease  that  put  a  pretty  hectic  glow 
upon  her  cheek,  and  an  arrow  of  pain  into  every 


390       AMERICAN  LANDS  fr   LETTERS. 

breath  she  drew.  On  her  best  days  she  walked 
with  him  ;  and  other  days,  and  far  into  nights, 
with  whose  shades  he  consorted  familiarly,  he 
sauntered  along  Fordham  heights,  and  down,  in 
southwesterly  way  under  shaded  country  roads,  to 


High  Bridge,  looking  toward  Fordham  Heights. 

the  High-Bridge  promenade  —  between  protective 
balustrades  —  from  which  he  could  look  upon  the 
winding  streak  of  Harlem  River  below,  and  upon 
the  southern  pinnacles  and  witnesses  of  a  city, 
whose  hum  and  roar  were  dimmed  by  distance. 
Here  the  poet  elaborated  in  his  night  strolls 


EUREKA.  391 

those  theories  and  brilliant  phantasies  which  took 
form  at  last  in  the  book  he  called  Eureka.  It 
purported  to  be  a  poetic  solution  of  the  secrets  of 
creation.  Nothing  was  too  large  for  his  grapple  ;, 
and  he  nursed  with  tenderness  the  metaphysic 
phantasms  that  started  into  view  when  he  wrestled 
with  such  problems. 

Meantime  he  is  busy  upon  more  merchantable 
magazine  material  in  the  shape  of  notes  upon  the 
Literati,  and  with  those  scalding  Marginalia  which 
invited  the  thrusts  and  abuses  of  a  good  many  of 
his  fellow-workers.  The  amiable  Longfellow,  with 
Theodore  Fay,  Ellery  Channing,  and  Margaret 
Fuller,  are  among  those  who  catch  some  of  the 
deeper  thrusts  of  his  critical  blade ;  while  there 
are  many  poetesses,  young  and  old,  who  are 
dandled  and  lulled  in  the  lap  of  his  flattering 
periods. 

The  winds  were  bleak  on  Fordham  heights  in 
that  winter  of  1846-47  ;  visitors  speak  of  that 
wasting  girl-wife  wrapped  (for  warmth)  in  her 
husband's  cloak,  with  a  "  tortoise-shell  cat  gath 
ered  to  her  bosom"  and  the  mother  "  chafing  the 
cold  feet."  Again  and  again  she  touches  the 


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Sw-  fffrtlr*  hJ^A.cQ..      asujL*   m  WJL.  fzc&A'eL     cL 

Fac-simile  of  the  Manuscript  of  One  of  Poe's  Stories. 

From  the  collection  of  G.  M.  Williamson,  Esq.,  of  Grand-yirw-on-Hudson. 


V 


THE    WIFE'S  DEATH.  393 

gates  of  death,  and  rallies  ;  even  so,  Leigeia  in 
that  horrific  story  of  the  weird  lady,  with  the 
"  black  abounding  tresses,"  cheats  her  lover  with 
ever  new,  and  ever  broken  promise  of  life  ! 

I  don't  think  the  child-wife  lamented  the 
approach  of  death  (January,  1847) ;  nor  did  the 
mother;  but  to  the  <( ghoul-haunted "  poet,  who 
had  lived  in  regions  peopled  by  shadows,  this 
vanishing  of  the  best  he  had  known  of  self-sac 
rificing  love,  was  desolating.  He  was  never  the 
same  again. 

We  have  hardly  a  right  to  regard  what  he  did 
after  this  —  whether  in  way  of  writing,  of  love- 
making,  or  of  business  projects  —  as  the  work  of 
a  wholly  responsible  creature.  It  were  better  per 
haps  if  the  story  of  it  all  had  never  been  told. 

In  some  one  of  the  swiftly  ensuing  months  — 
full  of  want,  and  of  a  drugged  craziness  of  im 
pulse  —  he  goes  with  the  manuscript  of  that 
poetic  Cosmogony,  which  was  to  unlock  the 
secrets  of  the  Universe,  into  the  office  (161  Broad 
way)  of  Mr.  Putnam  ;  and  by  his  impassioned, 
brilliant  advocacy  almost  prevails  upon  the  kindly 
publisher  to  believe  that  his  book  is  to  outrank 


394        AMERICAN  LANDS  fr   LETTERS. 

the  Principia  of  Newton,  and  that  a  first  edition 
of  fifty  thousand  copies  was  the  smallest  number 
that  should  be  considered. 

He  had  his  utterance,  too,  by  appointment,  on 
the  same  theme  with  a  carefully  prepared  digest  of 
his  work,  in  the  old  hall  of  the  Society  Li 
brary  (then  presided  over  by  the  courteous  Philip 
Forbes,  second  of  the  Forbes  dynasty),  upon  the 
corner  of  Broadway  and  Leonard  Street.  The 
night  was  stormy,  and  there  were  scarce  sixty 
present ;  but  these  favored  the  poet  with  rapt  at 
tention,  as  he  expounded  his  theories  of  the  mak 
ing  and  unmaking  of  the  material  universe.  I 
seem  to  see  him  again  in  that  gaunt  hall,  over 
against  the  Carleton  House  (where  the  Century 
Club  had  its  beginnings,  in  the  pleasant  fore-gath 
ering  of  the  "Column")  — the  alert,  fine,  sinewy 
figure  with  the  broad  ivory  brow  and  curling 
locks ;  with  eyes  that  appealed  by  their  lustrous 
earnestness,  as  he  launched  away  into  the  subtle 
and  remoter  ranges  of  his  topic.  That  low  bari 
tone  voice  —  distinct  —  full-freighted  with  feeling, 
would  alone  have  held  one  ;  all  its  tones  were 
penetrated  with  the  intellectism  of  the  man  ;  and 


LAST  POEMS.  395 

in  its  more  eloquent  phrases  the  talk  seemed  to 
be  the  vibrations  of  a  soul  quivering  there  with 
its  errand. 

But  did  he  win  the  entranced  auditors  to  his 
faith  ?  Alas,  no  !  There  were  fine  analyses  ;  subt 
lest  burrowings  of  thought ;  adroit  seizure  of  rare 
facts  that  bolstered  his  theory ;  a  profuse  squan 
dering  and  spending  of  the  dust  of  learning  —  so 
illumined  by  his  glowing  rhetoric  that  it  seemed 
a  golden  cloud ;  but  scholars  missed  those  big 
nuggets  of  special  knowledge  which  carry  weight 
and  make  balance  good. 

Did  he  see  this?  And  did  the  growing  tremor 
in  his  hand,  in  his  lip,  in  his  whole  presence  be 
tray  it  ?  Or  were  these  tremors  only  the  sequence 
of  some  drug-indulgence  of  yesternight  ? 

The  strange  poem  of  Ulalume  in  its  last  form  be 
longs  to  those  latest  years — with  its  doleful,  unreal 
figures,  flitting  down  the  "  ghoul-haunted  wood 
land  of  Weir."  So  does  that  other  wonderful  bit 
of  word-music  which  he  called  The  Bells,  whose 
tinkle  and  clanging  notes  he  marvellously  wrought 
into  waves  of  sound  —  carrying  echoes  wherever 
bells  are  now  —  or  ever  will  be  —  jangled. 


396       AMERICAN  LANDS  &*   LETTERS. 

There  is  a  brilliant  phosphorescent  glitter  in  all 
his  touches ;  but,  somehow,  we  do  not  keep  them 
in  mind,  as  we  keep  in  mind  a  summer  sunrise. 
Humanities  are  lacking;  figures  are  wrought  in 
ivory ;  even  the  blood-stains  upon  the  robes  of 
the  Madame  Madeleine  in  that  last  horrific  scene 
of  the  House  of  Usher  are  dreadfully  out  of  place  ; 
such  phantasms  never  bleed.  We  come  nowhere 
upon  any  Miltonic  spur  "  to  labor  and  to  wait ;  " 
no  "Footsteps  of  Angels"  beat  a  path  toward 
Beulah  —  but  rather  decoy  one  toward  the  "  dank 
tarn  of  Auber." 

In  the  critical  talk  of  Poe  there  was  a  free  and 
a  perfervid  utterance  which  made  for  him  doubt 
less  many  enemies  ;  but  enemies  can  never  bury 
real  forces  or  real  merit.  In  all  that  respects  the 
technicalities  of  verse,  there  were  in  him  such  art 
of  clever  adaptation,  and  measurement  of  word- 
forces  and  word-collocation,  that  no  enmities  can 
beat  down  or  bewray  his  triumphs. 

All  juggleries  of  sound  are  under  his  master 
ship  ;  all  the  resonance  of  best  brazen  instru 
ments  —  with  here  and  there  a  pathetic  touch  of 
some  "  Lost  Lenore"  breaking  in  —  like  a  tender 


Edgar  Allan  Poe. 


From  the  Poe  Memorial,  Richard  Hamilton  Park,  Sculptor,  presented  to  the  Metropolitan 
Museum  of  Art  by  the  Actors  of  New  York. 


LAST  DAYS.  399 

bird-note  ;  but  there  are  no  such  other  heart-heal 
ing  melodies — Miltonian,  Wordsworthian,  Shakes 
pearian —  as  not  only  bewitch  the  ear,  but  hang 
hauntingly  in  our  hearts. 

Again,  and  in  highest  praise  of  this  erratic 
genius,  it  must  be  said,  that  in  his  pages  — 
even  in  the  magical  renderings  of  Baudelaire  — 
there  is  no  lewdness  ;  no  beastly  double-meanings ; 
not  a  line  to  pamper  sensual  appetites :  he  is  as 
clear  and  cool  as  Arctic  mornings. 

After  his  Virginia  had  gone  from  his  home 
there  was  not  so  much  lingering  there  for  Poe  : 
there  were  sudden,  quick  bursts  of  travel  —  to 
Providence,  to  Lowell,  to  Boston,  to  Baltimore  ; 
always  the  old  dreams  of  a  great  fine  journal  of 
his  own ;  always  the  brilliant  forecast  of  wealth 
and  ease  and  jewels  ;  always  the  adoring  obeisance 
at  the  feet  of  clever  beautiful  women  who  had 
jewels  of  verse  or  jewels  of  praise  at  command ; 
always  the  fluttering  promises  (in  letters)  to  that 
kindly  Mrs.  Clemm  —  who  is  keeping  the  hearth 
warm  in  his  old  home  —  that  he  is  to  bring  back  a 
bride  there  on  the  morrow,  or  the  next  morrow  ; 
always  the  promises  break  down,  and  so  do  his 


400       AMERICAN  LANDS  &>  LETTERS. 

failing  forces.  At  last,  word  reaches  the  good 
motherly  kinswoman  at  Fordham  that  the  end  has 
come  ;  it  happened  at  Baltimore  ;  her  boy,  Edgar, 
has  been  picked  up  unconscious  in  the  street — 
has  been  taken  to  a  hospital,  and  has  died  there 
(October  7,  1849). 

There  are  marble  memorials  of  him  which  will 
be  guarded  and  cherished ;  but  there  is  no  Ado- 
nais,  no  heart-shaking  Lycidas,  no  murmurous 
beat  of  such  lament  and  resignation  as  belong  to 
In  Memoriam.  Only  the  Raven,  "  never  flitting/' 
still  keeps  up  from  year  to  year,  and  will,  from 
century  to  century  —  that  wailing  dirge  of  — 
"  Never  more  ! " 


INDEX. 


ABBOTT,  JACOB,  212. 
Abbott,  JohnS.  C.,  212. 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  28. 

Alcott,  Bronson,  184;  Carlyle's 
opinion  of,  184;  his  u  Orphic 
Sayings,"  188;  at  Concord, 
191. 

Alcott,  Miss  Louisa,  184. 

Allen,  Dr.  William,  211. 

Allston,  Washington,  288. 

Alston,  Colonel  William,  20. 

Alston,  Governor  Joseph,  23. 

American  Monthly,  100. 

American  Whig  Review,  387. 

Atlantic,  The,  343. 

BANCROFT,  GEORGE,  at  Harvard, 
33  ;  in  Europe,  34 ;  his  volume 
of  poems,  35  ;  Collector  for  the 
Port  of  Boston,  46  ;  first  vol 
umes  of  his  history,  47 ;  his 
marriage,  47 ;  comes  to  New 
York  to  live,  50;  as  office- 

'  holder  and  diplomat,  51  et  seq.  ; 
his  home  at  Newport,  56. 

Bartlett,  John  R.,  116  ;  his  "Dic 
tionary  of  Americanisms,"  117; 
his  book-shop,  117. 

Benjamin,  Park,  129;  363. 

Bird,  Robert  Montgomery,  126  ; 
his  "  Spartacus,"  126. 


Boston  Recorder,  95 ;  102. 

Bowdoin  College,  211 ;  Longfel 
low  at,  285. 

Breck,  Samuel,  his  "Recollec 
tions,"  14. 

Bridge,  Horatio,  213;  letter  to 
Hawthorne,  217. 

Brook  Farm,  159. 

Browning,  Robert,  257. 

Browning,  Mrs.,  180;  257;  269. 

Brownson,  Orestes,  176 ;  201. 

Burr,  Theodosia,  23. 

Bushnell,  Horace,  75  ;  at  college, 
77  ;  as  a  preacher,  79 ;  his  the 
ology,  80 ;  his  sermons,  84 ; 
his  character,  87  ;  as  a  literary 
artist,  88;  his  love  of  nature, 
91 ;  132. 

Butler,  Fanny  Kemble,  232. 

CALHOUN,  JOHN  C.,  20. 

Carey,  Henry  C.,  as  a  publisher, 
10. 

Carlyle  and  Emerson,  140;  his 
opinion  of  Emerson's  "  Nat 
ure,"  142. 

Chandler,  Joseph  R.,  13. 

Channing,  Wm.  Henry,  166. 

Cheever,  Rev.  George  B.,  213. 

Chicago,  early  days  of,  28. 

Child,  Mrs.  Lydia  Maria,  169. 


401 


402 


INDEX. 


Christian  Examiner,  130. 

Clarke,  James  Freeman,  357  ;  his 
44  Ten  Great  Religions,"  358. 

Cogswell,  Dr.  Joseph,  36  ;  at  the 
Astor  Library,  45. 

Congressional  Library,  2. 

Craigie  House,  Longfellow  at, 
288. 

Cranch,  Christopher,  169. 

Cashing,  Caleb,  129 ;  and  Whit- 
tier,  311  ;  his  44  Notes  from  the 
Netherlands,"  312. 

DANA,  CHARLES  A.,  165. 
Dante,   Longfellow's  translation 

of,  301. 
Darley,  F.  O.  C.,  his  illustrations 

for  44  Margaret,"  327. 
Democratic  Review,  217. 
Dial,  The,  179 ;  184 ;  193. 
41  Dictionary  of  Americanisms," 

Bartlett's,  117. 
Dwight,  John  S.,  165. 

Emancipator,  The,  169;  194; 
223. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  136 ;  his 
boyhood  days,  136;  ordained, 
138  ;  as  a  preacher  and  pastor, 
138;  visits  Carlyle,  140;  at 
Concord,  141 ;  his  u  Nature," 
142  et  seq.;  his  home  at  Con 
cord,  147  ;  his  address  at  Har 
vard,  148  ;  Holmes's  biography 
of,  149;  invited  to  Brook 
Farm,  154 ;  his  opinion  of  Al- 
cott,  184 ;  191  et  seq.  ;  second 
visit  to  England,  194;  his 
44  English  Traits,"  195;  his 
death,  199. 

41  Evangehne,"  Longfellow's,  294. 


44  FANSHAWE,"  Hawthorne's,  217. 

Fay,  Theodore,  104. 

Felton,  Professor,  287. 

Fields,  James  T.,  230. 

Fordham,  Poe's  cottage  at,  389. 

Franklin  Institute,  the,  19. 

Fuller,  Miss  Margaret,  177 ;  her 
precocity,  177 ;  talks  with 
Emerson,  178;  and  The  Dial, 
179 ;  visits  Europe,  180 ;  mar 
ries  the  Marquis  Ossoli,  181 ; 
her  tragic  death,  183  ;  201. 

GARRISON,  WM.,  194  ;  and  Whit- 
tier,  308. 

Gentleman's  Magazine,  384. 

41  Gordon  Pym,"  Poe's,  383. 

Gowans,  William,  383. 

Greely,  Horace,  179;  359;  his 
early  struggles,  360  ;  starts  the 
New  Yorker,  363  ;  his  charac 
ter,  365  ;  his  love  for  farming, 
366 ;  the  author's  visit  to  him, 
366;  his  tree-chopping,  369; 
nominated  for  the  Presidency, 
370 ;  his  death,  373. 

u  Grey slaer,"  Hoffman's,  117. 

Grimke,  Thomas  Smith,  122. 

14  Guy  Rivers,"  Simms's,  121. 

Harbinger,  The,  161. 

Hawthorne,  at  Brook  Farm,  166  ; 
202  ;  his  boyhood  days,  206 ;  at 
Sebago  Lake,  206  ;  his  Specta 
tor,  208 ;  at  Bowdoin  College, 
211 ;  his  44Fanshawe,"  217;  his 
44  Twice  Told  Tales,  "218;  as 
weigher  and  gauger,  218;  he 
marries,  220;  his  44  Mosses 
from  an  Old  Manse,"  220 ;  his 
love  for  solitude,  224 ;  appoint 
ed  Surveyor  at  Salem  Custom- 


INDEX. 


403 


House,  226;  his  "Scarlet 
Letter,"  229;  his  life  in  the 
Berkshires,  2o2 ;  his  "House 
of  Seven  Gables,"  236 ;  a  com 
parison  with  Stevenson,  237; 
his  "  Blithedale  Romance," 
238;  his  religion,  239;  at  Way-  | 
side,  240 ;  appointed  consul  at 
Liverpool,  243  ;  his  personality, 
247  ;  in  England,  253  ;  in  Rome, 
255  ;  his  "  Marble  Faun,"  258  ; 
home  again,  259  ;  his  attempts 
at  farming,  263 ;  his  death, 
267 ;  "  Marble  Faun, "  270. 

Headley,  J.  T.,  232. 

"Hiawatha,"  Longfellow's,  294. 

Hillard,  George,  223,  229,  287. 

Hoffman,  Charles  F.,  117,  388. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  332; 
his  "Poems,"  333;  the  au 
thor's  copy  of  his  "Poems," 
334 ;  at  Harvard,  336 ;  in  Eu 
rope,  339 ;  professor  at  Dart 
mouth,  340 ;  at  the  Harvard 
Medical  School,  341 ;  his  "  Au 
tocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table, " 
342  ;  an  estimate  of,  349. 

Hone,  Philip,  6;  sells  his  house 
in  New  York,  18. 

Hosack,  Dr.,  6. 

JAMES,  G.  P.  R.,  232. 

James,  Rev.  Henry,  150. 

Jefferson,  ex-President,  2. 

Journal  oj  Music,  Dwight's,  165. 

Judd,  Sylvester,  322 ;  his  noble 
character,  326;  his  "Mar 
garet,"  327. 

KENNEDY,  JOHN  P.,  126;  his 
friendship  with  Poe,  380. 


Kirkland,  John  Thornton,  32. 
Knickerbocker     Magazine,    129 ; 
217. 

LATHROP,  MRS.,  260. 

Little  Women ;  200. 

Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth, 
213;  his  youth,  282;  goes  to 
Europe,  284;  his  "  Outre- 
mer,"284;  Professor  at  Bow- 
doin,  285 ;  in  Europe  again, 
285;  his  "Hyperion,"  286;  a 
Harvard  professor,  287;  his 
"  Voices  of  the  Night,"  288  ; 
buys  Craigie  House,  290 ; 
"  Evangeline,"  294;  "Hia 
watha,"  294;  "Kavanagh," 
296 ;  retires  from  his  prof essor- 
ship,  296;  his  "Dante,"  301; 
his  death,  305. 

Longstreet,  Judge  Augustus  B., 
26. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  succeeds 
Longfellow,  296 ;  384. 

Lynch,  Miss  Anna,  388. 

"  MARGARET,"  Sylvester  JuddX 
327  el  seq. 

Marsh,  George  P.,  59;  his  boy 
hood  days,  60  ;  at  college,  63  ; 
in  Congress,  65  ;  in  the  Orient, 
66;  his  lectures,  67  ;  his  "  Man 
and  Nature,"  68  ;  Minister  to 
Italy,  69  ;  his  death,  73. 

Melville,  Herman,  235;  "  Omoo," 
"Typee,"and  "Moby  Dick," 
235. 

Morris,  George  P.,  friendship 
with  Willis,  104. 

New  England  Magazine,  342. 
New  England  'Review,  310. 


404 


INDEX. 


New  Yorker,  The,  360  ;  363. 
New    York   Mirror,   103;    117; 

387. 

New  York  Review,  45. 
New    York  Tribune,  179;  360; 

365. 
Norton,  Dr.  Andrews,  32. 


PARKER,  THEODORE, 
201. 

"Parley,"  "Peter,"  217. 

Peabody,  Miss  Sophia,  219. 

Pierce,  Franklin,  214  ;  215  ;  243  ; 
present  at  Hawthorne's  death, 
266. 

Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  373  ;  his  par 
ents,  374  ;  his  adoption,  375  ;  at 
school  in  England,  376  ;  at  the 
University  of  Virginia,  377; 
"Tamerlane,"  377;  in  the 
Army,  379  ;  on  the  Southern 
Literary  Messenger,  382  ;  his 
marriage  to  Virginia  Clemm, 
382  ;  goes  to  New  York,  383  ; 
goes  to  Philadelphia,  383;  his 
book  on  Conchology,  385; 
domestic  affairs,  386;  his 
"Raven,"  387  his  home  at 
Fordham,  389  his  literary 
criticisms,  391  his  wife's  ill 
ness,  391  ;  his  Cosmogony,  393  ; 
"  Ulalume"  and  "  The  Bells," 
395  ;  an  estimate  of  Poe,  399  ; 
his  death,  399. 

POLK,  PRESIDENT,  226. 

Porter,  Noah,  354  ;  356. 

Portfolio,  The,  9. 

Prentice,  George  D.,  310. 

QUINCY,  JOSIAH,  336. 

"  RAVEN,"  Poe's,  387. 
Reed,  Professor  Henry,  359. 


Ripley,  George,  155 ;  starts  Brook 
Farm,  156 ;  with  the  Tribune, 
161 ;  his  opinion  of  Hawthorne, 
162. 

Round  Hill  School,  36  et  seq. 

SANDERSON,  JOHN,  his  "  Ameri 
can  in  Paris,"  9. 

Simms,  William  Gilmore,  122. 

Society  Library,  The,  19  ;  394. 

Southern  Literary  Messenger, 
382. 

Sparks,  Jared,  32. 

Stephens,  John  L.,  114;  monu 
ment  to,  115. 

Stevenson,  R.  L.,  Hawthorne 
compared  with,  237. 

Story,  W.  W.,  256. 

"  TAMERLANE,"  Poe's,  377  ;  fab 
ulous  price  for,  379. 

Thompson,  George,  315. 

Thoreau,  Henry  David,  191,  223  ; 
his  scholarship,  272 ;  his  Wai- 
den  experience,  274 ;  at  Emer 
son's  home,  276 ;  his  lectures, 
277 ;  as  a  reformer,  277 ;  his 
"Excursions,"  278;  his  lit 
erary  position,  279 ;  Emerson 
on  Thoreau,  282. 

Ticknor,  George,  at  Harvard,  32. 

Ticknor,  W.  D.,  244;  his  death, 
266. 

United  States  Gazette,  13. 
VIRGINIA,  UNIVERSITY  OF,  5. 

WARE,  WILLIAM,  130 ;  his  "  Let 
ters  from  Palmyra,"  130;  his 
"  Probus,"  130 ;  comparison  of 
his  work  with  "  Quo  Vadis," 
130. 


INDEX. 


405 


Webster,  Noah,  289. 

Whittier,  John  Greenleaf,  his 
birthplace,  306  ;  his  youth,  307 ; 
attracts  Garrison's  attention, 
308  ;  and  the  New  England  Re 
view,  310 ;  as  politician,  311  ; 
at  Amesbury,  312 ;  his  anti- 
slavery  opinions,  315  et  seq.; 
estimate  of  Whittier,  318  ;  his 
New  Englandism,  321. 

Wilde,  Richard  Henry,  hisltalian 
studies,  24  ;  discovers  Giotto's 
portrait  of  Dante,  24;  his 
verse,  26. 

Willis,    Nathaniel    P.,    95;    his 


"  Absalom,"  96 ;  his  social  life, 
97;  as  a  poet,  99;  journalist 
and  man  of  the  world,  100; 
goes  to  Europe  for  the  Mirror, 
104;  his  "Pencillings  by  the 
Way,"  105;  in  the  Mediterra 
nean,  105  ;  meets  Landor,  106  ; 
in  England,  107 ;  his  social  ac 
complishments,  107  ;  residence 
in  New  York,  109 ;  at  "  Idle- 
wild,"  113;  his  death,  114; 
135;  388. 
Woolsey,  President,  354;  355. 

Youth's  Companion,  102. 


CHRONOLOGIC  NOTES. 


1800  Population  of  United  States,  5,500,000 ;  New  York  City, 
65,000;    Philadelphia,    40,000;    Boston,    25,000.    JOHN 
ADAMS,  President,  having  succeeded  to  General  Wash 
ington  in  1797.     Capital  removed  from  Philadelphia  to 
Washington,  D.  C.,  in  1800,  when  the  city  had  only  3,000 
inhabitants. 

Bowdoin  College  in  the  throes  of  its  beginning ;  but  only 
in  1802  its  Mass  Hall  ready  for  lodgers.  Birth-year  of 
MACAULAY  and  of  GEORGE  BANCROFT. 

1801  THOMAS   JEFFERSON  elected  President  (by  Congress), 
John  Marshall,  Chief  Justice.    Union  of  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland. 

1802  West  Point  School  established.  Ohio  admitted  to  Union. 
Birth  of  HORACE  BUSHNELL.     First  issue  of  Edinburgh 
Review.     Napoleon  Bonaparte   elected  Consul    for  ten 
years. 

1803  Louisiana  purchase  ($15,000,900).    Birth  of  EMERSON. 
Fulton  tries  steamboat  on  the  Seine. 

1804  Expedition  of  Lewis  and  Clark.     Napoleon  proclaimed 
Emperor.    BURR   kills    HAMILTON.      Birth   of   HAW 
THORNE. 

18O6-7    Trial  of  BURR  for  treason. 

1807  Fight  between  "Leopard"  and   "Chesapeake."    FUL 
TON'S  steamer  "Clermont"  sails  on  Hudson.     Birth  of 
JOHN  G.    WHITTIER  and  of  N.   P.   WILLIS.    Boston 
Athenaeum  founded. 

1808  Slave  trade  prohibited  by    Congress.     Birth  of  Louis 
NAPOLEON. 

407 


408  CHRONOLOGIC  NOTES. 

1809  JAMES  MADISON  succeeds  JEFFERSON.     Battle  of  Wag- 
ram.     Birth  of  LINCOLN,   O.    W.   HOLMES,   President 
BARNARD,  MENDELSSOHN,    and   of   GLADSTONE.     IR- 
VING'S  New  York. 

1810  Revolt  of  Spanish  Colonies  in  America.     Birth  of  MAR 
GARET  FULLER,  THEODORE  PARKER,  and  of  ASA  GRAY. 
Population    of   United    States,    7,250,000.      THOMAS'S 
History  of  Printing  published. 

1811  Birth  of  HORACE  GREELEY,  EDGAR  POE,  also  of  HENRY- 
BARNARD  (prominent  educational  writer),  and  of  NOAH 
PORTER. 

1813  War  against  Great  Britain.  Napoleon  invades  Russia. 
Childe  Harold  and  Niebuhr's  History  of  Rome  appear. 
Louisiana  a  State.  American  forces  invade  Canada. 
Birth  of  MRS.  STOWE.  Antiquarian  Society,  at  Worces 
ter,  Mass.,  established. 

1813  Fight    of     "Shannon"    and    "Chesapeake."      Robert 
Southey  made  Laureate. 

1814  Capture  and  burning  of  the  Capitol  by   British.     Mc- 
Donough's  victory  on  Lake  Champlain.     Napoleon  ab 
dicates.    MOTLEY,  the  historian,  born.    Treaty  of  Ghent. 
u  Hartford  Convention." 

1815  Battle  of  Waterloo.     Battle  of  New  Orleans. 

1816  Indiana  admitted.     BOLIVAR  prominent  in  South  Amer 
ican  wars. 

1817  MONROE  succeeds  President  MADISON.     Mississippi  ad 
mitted.      MOORE'S    Lallah   Rookh.      THOREAU  born. 
President  Day  succeeds  Dr.  Dwight  at  YALE. 

1818  United  States  flag  adopted.    Illinois  admitted.    Seminole 
war  begins. 

1819  Alabama  admitted.     Republic  of  Colombia  established 
under  Bolivar.    Congress  of  Vienna.   Birth  of  VICTORIA. 
Steamer  "Savannah"  crosses  the  Atlantic.     Birth  of 
LOWELL,  MELVILLE,  WHIFFLE,  HOLLAND,  and  WHIT 
MAN. 

1820  Maine   admitted.      Spain    cedes    Florida.     New    York 
Mercantile    Library     established.      IRVING'S     Sketch- 
Book.     Missouri  Compromise.     Population    of   United 
States,  9,600,000. 


CHRONOLOGIC  NOTES.  409 

1821  Cooper's  Spy  published.     Pennsylvania  Mercantile  Li 
brary  established.     Dr.  WILLIAM  ALLEN  elected  Pres 
ident  of  Bowdoin. 

1822  Birth  of  General  Grant.    Maine  Historical  Society  es 
tablished  at  Brunswick. 

1823  Cooper's   Pilot   and   Pioneers.      Birth    of   PARKMAN. 
Monroe  Doctrine  dates  from  1823. 

182-4  Visit  of  Lafayette.  Laying  of  corner-stone  to  Bunker 
Hill  Monument.  Oration  by  WEBSTER.  Birth  of 
GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS. 

1825  JOHN    QUINCY   ADAMS    succeeds   President  MONROE. 
Opening  of  Erie  Canal.     Cooper's  Last  of  the  Mohicans. 
Birth  of  BAYARD  TAYLOR.    Historical  Society,  Hart 
ford,  Conn.,  incorporated. 

1826  Death  of  JEFFERSON  and  JOHN  ADAMS  on  15th  of  July. 

1827  POE'S  Tamerlane  and  Miss  SEDGWICK'H  Hope  Leslie. 

1828  HAWTHORNE'S  first  romance  of  Fanshawe. 

1829  ANDREW  JACKSON  succeeds  QUINCY  ADAMS.  "Spoils" 
system  comes  into  vogue.     QUINCEY  succeeds  KIRKLAND 
at  Harvard.     First  "double-sheet"  number  of  London 
Times  issued. 

1830  Death  of  GEORGE  IV.     Famous  debate  of  WEBSTER  and 
HAYNE.     United  States  population    at   this   date,  12,- 
866,000.      Louis  Philippe,  King  of  France ;    Charles  X. 
flies. 

1831  GARRISON'S  Liberator  established.     Indiana  Historical 
Society,  also  Historical  Society  at  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 

1832  Banquet  to  WASHINGTON  IRVING  on  return   from   Eu 
rope.     Charles  and  Fanny  Kemble  play  in  New  York. 
BIUGHAM  YOUNG  joins  the  Mormons.    Death  of  WALTER 
SCOTT. 

1833  South  Carolina  completes  longest  line  of  railroad  (at  that 
date)  in  the  world.     Trade  to  China  opened. 

1834  HORACE  GREELEY  (with  others)  establishes  New  Yorker. 
Romish  convent  burned  at  Charlestown,  Mass.,  by  an 
anti-Popish    mob.      First    vol.    of    Bancroft's     United 
States  History. 


410  CHRONOLOGIC  NOTES. 

1835  Bennett's  New  York  Herald  established.     Great  fire  in 
New  York.     Famous  "Moon  Hoax"  appears  in  Sun. 
LONGFELLOW'S  Outre-Mer. 

1836  Arkansas  and   Michigan   admitted.     Death   of   AARON 
BURR  and  of  JAMES  MADISON.    Dr.  HOLMES'S  first  vol 
ume  of  poems  issued. 

1837  VAN    BUREN   succeeds   JACKSON.      Great    commercial 
crisis.     Suspension  of  specie  payments.     HAWTHORNE'S 
Twice-told  Tales.     VICTORIA  comes  to  English  throne. 
Independence  of  Texas  recognized. 

1838  "Great  Western"  makes  first  trip  (fifteen  days)  from 
Bristol.     Wilkes's  South  Sea  expedition  sails.      EMER 
SON'S  address  at  Divinity  Hall. 

1839  Rebellion  in  Canada.     Daguerre  takes  first  daguerreo 
types.     LONGFELLOW'S  Hyperion.    EMERSON'S  Nature, 
LEONARD  WOODS  succeeds  Dr.    WILLIAM  ALLEN   in 
Presidency  of  Bowdoin  College. 

1840  Union  of  the  Canadas.     Marriage  of   Victoria.     Begin 
ning  of  New  Houses  of  Parliament. 

The  "Brook  Farm'1''  project  under  Dr.  RIPLEY.  The 
Dial  established — edited  by  Miss  Fuller.  Census  shows 
United  States  population  of  17,009,000. 

1841  HARRISON    succeeds    VAN    BUREN.      LONGFELLOW'S 

Voices  of  the  flight.     New  York  Tribune  established. 

184SB    Ashburton  Treaty.     Brook  Farm  in  operation. 

1843  Death  of  NOAH  WEBSTER. 

1844  Oxford  Tracts.     Drs.  Pusey  and  Newman  arraigned  by 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury.    MORSE'S  telegraph  ' '  set  up. " 

1845  President  POLK  succeeds  TYLFR  (who  filled  place  of 
the    dead    HARRISON).      JUDD'S    Margaret    appears ; 
also  MARGARET  FULLER'S    Woman  in  the  Nineteenth 
Century. 

1846  President  WOOLSEY   succeeds  Dr.  DAY  at  Yale ;    also 
EDWARD  EVERETT    to  JOSIAH  QUINCEY  at  Harvard. 
Mexican  War.     Settlement  of  Oregon  dispute.     Texas, 
Wisconsin,    and    Iowa    join    the    Union.       EMERSON'S 
Poems,  and  HAWTHORNE'S  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse. 


CHRONOLOGIC  NOTES.  411 

1847  Capture  of  Vera  Cruz  and  Mexico.     Burning  of  phalan 
stery  at  Brook  Farm.     Gold  discovered  in  California. 

1848  Revolutionary  spirit  active  in  France  and  throughout 
Europe.     EMERSON'S  Representative  Men,     POE'S  Eu 
reka,    a    prose    poem.      Free  -  Sellers    nominate    VAN 
BUREN. 

1849  JARED  SPARKS  succeeds  EDWARD  EVERETT  at  Harvard. 
General  TAYLOR  succeeds  POLK  ;  he  prohibits  expedition 
of  American  adventurers  against  Cuba.     Riot  in  New 
York  (Astor   Place)   occasioned  by  the  playing  of  the 
actor  Macready. 

1850  Census  shows  United  States  population  of  23,200,000. 
California  admitted.     HENRY  CLAY'S  Omnibus  Bill  does 
not  end  slavery  agitation.     HAWTHORNE  publishes  Scar 
let  Letter ;  MELVILLE  his   White  Jacket.     In  England 
KINGSLEY  issues  Alton  Locke,  BDLWER  his  Harold,  and 
DICKENS  completes  David  Copperjield. 

1851  First  u  World's  Fair"  in  Hyde  Park,  London.     Death 
of  AUDUBON  and  of  COOPER.     Conspicuous  book  issues 
are :  Casa  Guidi  Windows,  by  Mrs.  BROWNING  ;  House 
of  the  Seven  Gables,  by  HAWTHORNE  ;  Christ  in  Theol- 
°9y*  by  BUSHNELL  ;  and  Stones  of  Venice,  by  RUSKIN. 

1853  Death  of  DANIEL  WEBSTER  and  of  HENRY  CLAY.    Issue 
of  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  ;  also  of  DICKENS'S  Bleak  House, 
HAWTHORNE'S  Blithedale  Romance,  THACKERAY'S  Es 
mond,  and  READE'S  Peg  Woffington. 

1'853  President  PIERCE  succeeds  TAYLOR  (and  FILLMORE). 
JAMES  WALKER  succeeds  JARED  SPARKS  at  Harvard. 
CURTIS'S  Potiphar  Papers. 

1854  Commodore  PERRY  opens    Japanese    ports.     "  Ostend 
Manifesto"  and  filibustering  to  Cuba.     Struggle  for  Kan 
sas.     Immigration  (to  United  States)  reaches  number  of 
half  a  million. 

1855  VICTORIA  and  NAPOLEON  exchange  visits.     War  with 
Russia.     Bombardment  of  Sebastopol.     PRESCOTT  pub 
lishes  portion    of  Philip   II.    (left   unfinished    at    his 
death,  in  1859).    LONGFELLOW'S  Hiawatha  and  CHARLES 
KINGSLEY' s  Westward  Ho  ! 


412  CHRONOLOGIC  NOTES. 

1856  Death  of  PERCIVAL  and  JOHN  PIERPONT.     Assault  on 
SUMNER  in  United  States  Senate  Chamber.     FREMONT 
nominated  by  Free-Soilers.     EMERSON'S  English  Tracts 
and  Mrs.  BROWNING'S  Aurora  Leigh. 

1857  Sepoy  mutiny  in  India.     President  Buchanan  succeeds 
PIERCE.      u.Dred    Scott"    decision.      Financial   panic. 
THACKERAY'S  Virginians  and  HOLLAND'S  Bay  Path. 

1858  Famous  LINCOLN  and  DOUGLAS  debates.    First  Atlantic 
cable  laid.     Minnesota  admitted.     HOLMES'S  Autocrat 
and  BUSHNELL'S  Nature  of  the  Supernatural. 

1859  JOHN  (Ossawatomie)  BROWN'S  raid  upon  Harper's  Ferry 
and  subsequent  execution.     WASHINGTON  IRVING  dies, 
and  DELIA  BACON  (chief  advocate  of  the  Baconian-Shake 
speare   claim).      Liberation   of  Lombardy.     Admission 
of  Oregon.     DICKENS'S  Tale  of  Two    Cities,  STOWE'S 
Minister's  Wooing,  and  HAWTHORNE'S  Marble  Faun. 

1860  Census  shows  population  of  20,000,000.     Professor  FEL- 
TON  succeeds  President  WALKER  at  Harvard.     "Peter 
Parley"  and   Paulding    die.     EMERSON    publishes    his 
Conduct  of  Life ;  and  in  the  following  year  begin  the 
Presidency  of  LINCOLN  and  the  War  of  Secession. 


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